My First Credit Card -- a Gateway Drug

A Credit Article Contributed by Timothy M. Doherty

Credit Card Peer Pressure

Get a credit card. Everybody's doing it. You don't want to be left out. Do you? We young people grew up in households that used credit in moderation. But our generation lives increasingly beyond its means. We are inundated by offers for credit cards everywhere we turn. Cash has become antiquated. To compete in society we must have a pocket full of plastic.

People in their late teens and early twenties do not typically make very much money. Whether college students or high school graduates trying to learn a trade, they cannot afford their digital lifestyle without a credit card or three. Submerging in debt before they've even left home for the first time, young people are setting an expensive precedent by which they will live the rest of their lives.

Credit Card Junkies

Like needle tracks on our arms the stacks of bills grow ever more dense. We get that first credit card with a $500 limit and we tell ourselves that we will use it for emergencies or maybe to pay for gas. We pay off our balance those first few months and then all of a sudden, we have a $1500 limit. We think nothing of it. We haven't come anywhere near our limit yet, so what can it hurt to have a higher one?

Then we see a Fender Stratocaster that we must have. Or we become acquainted with malted hops and barley, those crazy kids in the cooler section at the gas station. There's always something. Sometimes it's a big purchase. It will be a one time thing. We'll pay off our balance in two months this time instead of one. More often it's many small purchases. And then, in the blink of an eye, our apartment is full of toys that we don't use and that balance is around two months pay and rising.

The Credit Card Cycle of Abuse

The good thing about using that high-interest-rate credit card is that we develop a little credit history. Now we can get a better card with a lower rate and a higher limit. So we say goodbye to that kiddie credit card and hello to its equally addictive cousin. But, we're still making six bucks an hour working at Footlocker.

That's okay, in a couple years we'll be out of college or we'll have our welding certification or we'll have that big book deal. We can cut back our habit a little in the mean time. But by then our credit card has become so engrained in our lifestyle that getting rid of it would be a frontal lobotomy. And that card has altered our view of the world drastically. Now we are locked into a rented world. Unlike our parents, we don't think about buying a house.

We fear a mortgage not because of how long it takes to pay off, but because of the finality that will come with that last payment. The life of a credit card junkie is validated by bills. Paying those monthly bills is tangible proof that progress is being made.

We live in a self-propagating cycle. And we are happy there. But, is this the way we want to go through life?