While you, the parent, don't want to see your kids grow up and leave the nest it is a fact of life that they will be out on their own in a few short years.
Given that your teens will be leaving for college or entering the workforce sooner than you might think I believe it is best to start teaching your children fiscal responsibility at the earliest possible age.
Did you know that according to the Jump Start Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy that nearly one third of high school seniors have a credit card? This to me is a frightening statistic especially if those teens have not been armed with sound financial education.
To me the combination of a teen and an unsecured credit card are a ticking time bomb of financial disaster
Yes, that's right teens are getting themselves into financial trouble out of the gate. Parents must start teaching their children about financial responsibility before their teens acquire credit card debt.
Why not start teaching them about credit cards right away to address the problem of credit card debt long before it becomes an issue. You owe it to your kids to provide the life skills they will need when they are young adults. I only wish my parents discussed credit card spending with me when I was in my teen years. At the tender age of 18, I acquired my first credit card and within the first month of holding my first credit card I had the $1000 limit maxed out.
While a thousand dollar line of credit isn't a huge amount of debt, the problem was the poor credit spending habits I had developed.
Here's what happened that created 9 years of me digging out of debt.
It started with the $1000 limit on my first credit card that I pushed to the limit. When I saw that I was really only servicing the interest with my minimum monthly payments I started paying larger amounts on my card.
It was when I was close to having paid down half of the $1000 balance on my credit card the credit card company increased my limit to $1700.
Since I had not had good credit spending habits instilled in me at a young age, I saw this as some free money and decided to go on a road trip with my buddy. I looked at the increase in my credit limit as having $1200 in available funds to go have some serious fun. At age 18 and having over a thousand dollars in credit paid for gas and lots of bar bills (Yeah, we managed to get into a few bars). Within 9 days my credit card was maxed out again!
Now I owed $1700 on my card and the cycle of paying down my card and getting credit limit increases repeated over and over again until I my balance owing was roughly $15000! That took me nearly 9 years to pay off!
Help your teens avoid the nightmares and headaches of digging themselves into debt by teaching them how to use a credit card and track their spending right now. Even if your kids are just entering their teen years, the earlier you can start teaching them the better off they are going to be when they become young adults with real world bills and financial responsibilities.
For the most part parents have tried to teach their kids about money by providing them with an allowance which they must budget until their next allowance day. This is a good start to teaching your kids how to budget however the difficulty in having maximum impact when you discuss financial issues with your kids and their spending habits with their allowance is you have no means of tracking their spending.
The money is placed in your teens hands and the money leaves their hands without a trace.
There is one credit card company that is changing all that, it's the Allow Card. The Allow Card is a prepaid debit MasterCard that gives you, the parent, online access to view your teens spending. Now you can have a real conversation with your child about spending. The way this program works is you fund the card via your credit card or bank account and then your teen is free to spend the funds until they are gone. You then can login online to view where your teen has been spending money and then can discuss strategies for stretching their allowance.
Begin educating your teens about responsible use of a credit card right now with a card such as the Allow Card. Not only does the card provide you with the opportunity to discuss credit card spending with your kids, there is a series of financial lessons that your kids will receive to further their financial intelligence.
As a parent you are responsible for educating your kids in financial matters, don't leave it to the school system, you must take action to teach your kids about money. The time that you invest now with your teens are lessons that will last a lifetime.
Applications for credit cards are everywhere. These are available on display in banks and in retail stores and the displays are very prominently displayed so as to attract the maximum number of applicants. Then, there are applications massed mailed at random to thousands of homes hoping to attract an applicant who could use a little credit. It would seem that it is fairly easy to find a credit card and, to a great extent, this is true. However, not all credit cards are available to a large number of people. In fact, there are a significant amount of exclusive credit cards that are very, for lack of a better word, picky in terms of who can apply for them. This may seem unfair, but the fact remains in the free market world some individuals have amassed great wealth and, as such, can make purchases that are of significant amounts of money. As such, the credit cards that they require will be of significant credit limits and these cards will have certain stringent requirements for application approval.
While not the first credit card to be considered an exclusive credit card the American Express Centurion is probably the most famous and legendary of all the exclusive cards. For starters, no one can arbitrarily apply for the card. It is strictly an invitation only card and the only people invited are those who are super wealthy. So elite is this card that in Hollywood circles, the possession of the Centurion card is considered a major status symbol.
Not to be outdone, Bank of America has opted to issue its own exclusive card in association with American Express. The card is known as the Accolades card and while not as exclusive as the Centurion, it is a rather difficult card to be approved for since it is designed for extremely high purchases. In fact, the average transaction fees collected on this card is about $2400 per card per month. This can yield significant income and Bank of America could surely use it considering the way their stock has crashed in the third quarter. Perhaps this is why Bank of America opted to release such a card in the first place.
Of all the exclusive credit cards on the banking market, probably the most exclusive and prestigious of all would be the Coutts & Co.'s World Card which is issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. How exclusive is this particular card? Well, consider the following: anyone who applies for the card must have millions of dollars in assets before even being remotely considered qualified for the card! Additionally, you must be a member of Coutts and Company which is the United Kingdom's most exclusive bank. It is believed that less than 100 people in the world have been approved for this card. Yes, this is a truly prestigious card and those who possess are truly privileged individuals!
To a certain extent, the exclusivity of these cards is what makes them so appealing. That is, celebrities and the very wealthy are not so much looking for the best credit card on the market as much as they are looking to join in on a club that is highly prestigious and exclusive. These luxury credit cards are highly exclusive and that is what makes them highly desirable. Amazingly, even someone with a net worth of $10 million may be turned down for these cards! So, it goes without saying there is a certain sense of accomplishment one can derive from being approved for one of these cards. As such, those who have been approved take solace in the fact that they have truly been anointed...at least by the credit card companies anyway.
Both Colin Mcdougall & Richard Adams are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Colin Mcdougall has sinced written about articles on various topics from Legal Matters, Credit Cards and Internet Marketing. Crediteria.com is committed to educating consumers about responsible use of credit cards and loans. To get the latest reviews on and information to incr. Colin Mcdougall's top article generates over 880 views. to your Favourites.
Richard Adams has sinced written about articles on various topics from Travel and Leisure, Quit Smoking and Computers and The Internet. If you think a credit card might be the right choice for you then just head on over to our new site where you can compare and contrast the latest card deals to find the most suitable for you ->. Richard Adams's top article generates over 1830000 views. to your Favourites.