Opening a line of credit

[no one 0]

My 22 y.o. wife wants to get a credit card now that she’s been working for a whole three weeks. Since she has no credit history what so ever, what’s the best route to take in her situation? Should she/we have her open a line of credit in her name (with me as her sponsor/ co-applicant), should I just ask my C.C. company for another card for her (I have forgotten to add her to my C.C. accounts – pure over sight)?? Or some other option??

Thanks.

Others have already mentioned getitng her a secured credit card... another option would be to get a "student credit card" if she's enrolled in any courses, because those are easier to get.

As for me... I'm living in the SF Bay Area and have a joint bank account with my husband at HSBC. I asked the guy who'd opened my bank account for me about getting a credit card... he punched in some data into the bank's system, and voila! a credit card with $7000 limit. I was shocked, as I was unemployed at the time, and didn't even have my green card yet. I had, however, savings at their bank... so I'm not sure if they looked at my savings or at my husband's financial situation.

[brtlmj 0]

By the way, it's a big day today. I received my first pre-approved CC offer It does not matter that it went straight to my shredder (there is a certain unnamed place where they can stick their "platinum" card with a $200 limit, $70 sign-up fee and $70 annual fee), but hey, it's a start

[tom&tata 2]

I see three options:

2. Add her to your credit card as an authorized user (this will mean she won't technically have a credit card of her own, she'll just be authorized to use your credit card number with her name on it, and you'll be entirely responsible for her spending).

Thanks for the replies. I think #2 is the worst option becuase it doesn't create her credit history.

To the best of my knowledge, it does. My wife added me as an authorized user and the CC account is now listed as an "account in good standing" in my credit report.

That is true. It does. I pulled my credit report (my SSN was issued in 2006 but I moved only in July 2006) and it contains the credit history of the credit card that my husband added me as authorized user.

On top of that, I applied for BofA secured card - it's been 6 months since I had that card and I have recently been approved for credit card (under my own name) with decent limit.

Yes, it feels good to have credit card offer under your name

Edited March 22, 2007 by tom&tata

[tom&tata 2]

Sort of related:

Never had a credit card before but what does the APR actually mean?

I mean, if I intend to just buy gas every other week and pay off the bill on time, that percentage rate doesn't affect me at all, does it? All I pay is the gas bill?

I'm new at the credit card thing

APR is annual percentage rate - interest rate. If you have credit card, and you pay in full every month, you will not have to worry about the APR on your credit card because you would not be affected. Lots of people carry balance in their credit card, so you pay interest on those balance. In this case, lower APR is desirable.

Thanks!

What about finance charges? This agreement reads like my friggin accounting course in college o.o

For each day in the Billing Cycle, we take your beginning balance and add any new transactions and other debits and subtract any payments or other credits. This equals that day's Daily Balance. We multiply the Daily Balance by the applicable Daily Periodic Rate to get your finance charge for that day. We add these finance charges to your Daily Balance to get the beginning balance for the next day.

We add together all Finance charges calculated or incurred each day during a Billing Cycle to determine the Total Finance Charge for that Billing Cycle. We add together each daily balance for the Billing Cycle and divide by the number of days in that Billing Cycle to determine your Average Daily Balance.

Where appropriate, we perform this calculation separately for each type of transaction that appears on the Statement such as Purchases, Cash Transactions, Balance Transfers or Promotional Balances.

Finance charges is the charges you will get added to your credit card bills on top of the amount you charged on the cards. The calculation depends on balance carried and the APR rate applied to you. Banks here can have different offers APR rate for Balance Transfer transaction, Purchase Transaction, or Cash Advance. As much as possible, I try to pay in full the amount on the statement so I don't have to worry about the finance charges.