Shell Credit Card Advice

If you are like me in any way, then at one point in your life you probably had multiple credit cards. I had credit cards from banks and retail stores. I even had a Shell credit card for my gasoline purchases! Whatever the case is with you, you can probably understand a least a little how addicting credit cards can be when you start using them. Although, when used properly, credit cards can be a means to an end, they can also cause you to get further into debt than you are already in. I wish that someone had taught be the dangers of credit as well as how to use the benefits in a healthy way when I was young so that I wouldn’t have had to deal with the consequences of increasing debt.  I am hoping by sharing some advice with you that you will not make the same mistakes I did.

The first big lesson I learned was with my Providian credit card. I had just graduated high school and was on my way to college, so I thought it was a great idea to start building credit and to have the freedom to make purchases that I couldn’t in all reality afford on my small college budget. I went to a college where a lot of the students had unlimited expenditures and trust funds and since I was there on a scholarship, I did not fit into the financial framework of many of my cohorts. Since I wanted to be able to shop in the same stores and eat at the same restaurants, I abused my first credit card and began to rack up debt. What I thought was that as long as I made the minimum payments on my debt, I would be alright. Unfortunately, what I did not realize is that once your balance reaches 50% or more of your credit limit, your credit score begins to drop. Even though this did not really matter to me at the time, it ended up causing me to pay higher interest rates when I went to purchase my first car.

After purchasing my first car, I started concentrating on making the monthly payments for this debt but slipped a few times on the payment for my credit card. This was a very bad idea. What I didn’t realize at the time was that since a few of my payments were past the 15-30 day built in grace periods, late payments started showing up on my credit report and I have yet to get them off. Even though this was many years ago it is still affecting my current credit score! What I wish I had known was that many credit card companies offer auto pay systems which would have enabled me to automatically make the minimum payment directly through my bank account. This way, even if I forgot, I would at least have made the minimum payment and prevented myself from getting some of the late marks on my credit report.

The third big mistake I made was continuing to open up multiple credit lines through retail stores thinking that it was boosting my credit score. Retail credit cards do not boost your score as much as bank owned credit systems. In fact, if you have too many retail cards, they can actually hurt your score even if you make the appropriate payments on them. It is wise to only have a few bank owned credit cards that you pay down or off each month at least to the 49% balance mark. (SN:0A9SDRMCS0929e)

Although I made a lot of mistakes in my youth with credit, I also learned a lot of lessons that have helped me in the future. By taking my advice and also finding some additional tips on your own, I hope that you will find ways to make wise financial decisions that will benefit you in your future. For even more great ways to do this, you can find more advice at http://www.renewmycreditscore.com.