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Take my advice: Avoid cards with low promotional rates, especially if it's your first card. Unless you are very self-disciplined. I was all excited when I turned 18 and I got credit card after credit card after credit card.
Fast forward five years later and here I am with over $10,000 in credit card debt, having a car about 5-6 years old that should probably be traded in soon before it starts getting too expensive to maintain, and not having the credit score to allow that to happen easily.
My biggest downfall is the promotional rates. Oh yeah, 1.9%, I can get this paid off in 6 months, no problem! Well, I didn't. And yeah, I was bad and missed a payment here and there, and one of my cards literally got to the point where minimum payment wasn't even covering 70% of the finance charges.
I'm not one to write off my debts and let other credit card holders pay my balances off by paying high interest rates while I ride out a 7 year bankruptcy train.. I did the next best (worst?) thing and went with Credit Counseling, which is nice since it prevents future spending on those cards, but now I have to start my length of credit history over with another creditor. Now I know better and literally use the card only in emergency situations, and even then I don't like to use it.
Get a card with a small limit, don't necessarily pay it off every month (since the credit card companies WANT to make at least some money off of you), but pay most of it down. After awhile you'll start getting good credit.
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