Posts tagged: credit cards poor credit

Credit Cards for Poor Credit

It’s hard to get much done in modern society without credit. You can’t buy a home, you can’t buy a car (unless of course you have a bunch of cash on hand), and in many cases not having credit (or having bad credit) will stop you from getting satellite TV or even a cell phone. So, if you’re a person with a bruised FICO score and a desire to turn things around, you’ll need to check out credit cards for poor credit.

There are a few ways you can go here. The simplest way to think about getting a poor credit credit card is to just have your parents add you to one of their accounts. When I was 18 my parents put me on one of their accounts (I didn’t even know they did it) and by the time I was 21 I actually had fairly good credit and a decent credit history for prospective lenders to look at when deciding whether to let me borrow any money. Thanks to my parents’ foresight I was able to get my first car loan at the age of 22. They did have to co-sign on the loan, but a short time later I was able to get my own loans no problem

Of course, that’s kind of an odd way to think about credit cards for people with poor credit.  What people are really looking for is a credit card provider who will give them a low limit credit card they can work with for a while in order to improve their standing with the credit agencies. These are most often going to be secured cards, because  a bank isn’t going to hand over an opportunity for you to make your situation worse (you’ve already done that, right?). What they’ll do is give you a secured card with a low limit, and then you’ll have the opportunity to use it and pay it off. Eventually your card provider will give the good news to the credit agencies and your score will slowly climb.

Ironically, carrying a small balance on your card for a few months, and making regular minimum payments, will go further toward improving your score than paying it off in full every monthy would. You see, lenders want to know that you can manage debt as much as they want to know you can manage credit. Does that make sense? Paying off your balance every month proves you can manage your credit. Carrying a small balance month to month and keeping the payments current shows you can manage your debt. Since a home loan or car loan isn’t something you can just pay off at the end of the month, you can use your credit cards as a way of proving that your ready to wisely use the bigger debt instruments. Think of the interest you pay as the cost of improving your credit to the point that you’ll be able to buy a nicer can and someday afford a home.