Small Lesson about Credit Cards

I was fortunate enough to have parents that paid for my college, and gave me an allowance every month during my college years. I didn’t have an open bank account with endless amount of money, but enough to Pay rent, bills, food, and just enough to party more than I needed to. I had a credit card with a $1000.00 limit (was my first) that was for books, supplies, and emergencies. These were given to me by my parents to teach me about responsibility with money. They never mentioned bailing me out if I didn’t use the money for other things beside bills or if I ran up my credit card. My father told me that he would have the credit card bill come to him and he would pay for the things he outlined for me.

One of the first small lessons I learned was running up a credit card. I spend my first semester putting only books and supplies on the credit card. Second semester rolled around and I was sick of eating cafeteria food and realized that restaurants took credit cards. I started off just once a week then next thing I was eating out and using the credit card more than I should. My father wasn’t saying anything so I started using even more. I came home one weekend when dad and me had a sit down. He showed me the credit card bill and had highlighted the items he paid for (ones he promised to pay) and non-highlighted items that were all fast food and stuff he hadn’t promised to pay for. The total bill from the credit card had added up to $500.00!!! I turned to him and said sorry and I wouldn’t use it again for stuff I didn’t need. He looked at me said “I hope so because at this point you are in charge of paying the bill” and that he would write me a check for the things I need for school. How, why, I cant believe my dad set me up! I don’t have $500 sitting around? Well…2 years later, I finally paid off that $500.00.

I learned a lot that day my father sat me down and handed the credit card bill over to me. I couldn’t spend whenever I wanted…I think my dad was on to something knowing that I couldn’t get into to much trouble with $500 debt…I mean he gave me enough to live on and I could have paid if I wanted to budget my money. Unfortunately, I just didn’t. The lesson I learned was that if you don’t know what your spending next thing you know you can be in a lot of trouble with debt. He was willing to let me make a mistake to learn from it. I thank him for that lesson now.