Did I catch your eye? And no, I’m not going crazy.
The cellist may very well get a credit card to help manage his money this year – however it will be of the prepaid kind. I know you all have seen them. They are carried in Walgreen’s and CVS all around. Yes, I’m talking about
It does have a small activation fee, and a couple of other fees associated with it, however, the majority of them will not apply to the cellist since he doesn’t have a job (that I know of) and won’t be using any ATM’s. I figure if we are going to start him with a card – it could be this one. There is one monthly fee that we could circumvent if he did 30 transactions in one month, but, well he’s in school. Like I said, we’ll do more research and see how everything pans out.
I did figure that we could possible load this up for him for his 12th birthday and just let him have at it. We already have a savings plan in place for him, and this could be his “play” money. Basically a way for him to keep track of his spending and also learn the hard knocks of money not always being on the credit card. All of this without having to pay an overdraft fee of any sort, or come out with a horrible credit rating.
I’m sure that he would be SUPER excited to have this particular card, but like I said, Mr. Nicholes and I would definitely have to weigh the pros and cons of giving the cellist a card with money on it. They do have a student card available too, which also catches my eye.
Has anyone had any experience with them before? Can you give me feedback? I do see that they are rated with an A+ on the Better Business Bureau, but I figure I would go to the blogosphere with my questions and get feedback here.
Have you all used pre-paid credit cards? What has been your experience with them? Would you recommend the use of them for families with tweens, or just for adults? Would you give it as a gift, or just stick with gift cards?
I know that this is a LOT to mull over, but like I said – with the holiday season coming up (in six weeks – YIKES!) we’ve gone into overdrive to see what practical gifts we could get for the cellist. Now, I’m off to do some thinking!
~Make It A Fantastic Day!
I used a secured credit card years ago to repair my credit from the identity theft debacles of 2003 and 2006. It basically applied through my own bank and they set a small limit of $200 and I basically used it for putting gas in my car. I had a due date every month and interest would apply if I didn’t pay the full balance. There were annual fees and things of that nature.
A secured credit card is a bit much for a preteen since it does reflect on your credit. But I think a prepaid card that has no due dates or interest attached would be a great tool to teach financial responsibility. Shoot, my mom had me balancing checkbooks by 11 lol