All students should have a credit card if they have at least a part time job. You need to establish good credit before you can apply for a car loan or later a mortgage. Its very hard to apply for a loan when you have no credit history. The trick is to use your credit card wisely and to have the proper attitude towards money so that credit works for you.

A good use for a credit card would be, its close to payday and you need to buy food or you need to repair your vehicle to get to work.

A poor use of a credit card is you are tired of being stuck at home because you are short on cash and want to go out for the weekend with your friends. This is what will get you into cash flow problems at the end of the month.

When you are establishing a credit history it is essential that you pay your bills early or at the least on time at the end of your billing period. Notice I did not say the end of the month. Look at your statement very carefully and see what your billing period is, it may very well be the beginning or the middle of the month. This is also the time period of when you will start to accrue interest charges. Pay your debt on time and dont run a balance for at least 6 months.

Here is a neat trick for people that have studied their billing dates and compared this to the date items where purchased. (Please note: this only works for people that are financially disciplined) (It also doesnt work with cash advances). Your credit card billing date is June 5th and your payment is due the standard 21 days later. You wanted to use your card a couple of days before say around June 2nd if you wait until June 6th the charge will appear on the next billing statement July 5th and the payment wont be needed until July 26th. By waiting a couple of days you have extended free credit for an additional 30 days. If you pay the entire amount on time it is basically a 0% percent loan and you have just used somebody elses money for free.

One more thing about your statement and how much interest you will pay. Most students get into trouble with cash advances. The majority of credit card companies will start charging you interest from the time you acquired the cash advance and to add insult to injury it is charged until you have paid off the preceding balance plus the cash advance.

What type of card should students apply for only 0% introductory offers. These terms are normally only good for 6 months and maybe up to one year. If you are late for just one payment you can kiss the low introductory offer good-bye. Read the fine print on the back of the card offer and you will see what I mean. If you all ready have a visa credit card or Mastercard and you see they are offering 0% for new card holders only, you can phone them up and ask for a better rate. If your credit is good they will normally lower your rate, if they dont you can always threaten to take your business elsewhere. You can sweeten the deal if you have more than one credit card by transferring the balance to them. Which you should always do if you have a card that has a lower interest rate! Although I have to ask if you are a student what are you doing with more than one charge card?

The term credit card surfing has been used around college campuses for a while. It sounds good and does have its benefits, BUT it can also ruin your credit history very fast with only one simple mistake. I do not recommend you do it, if this is your first credit card or you have had your card for less than a year. Credit card surfing is the practice of applying for any new low interest rate introductory credit card offer, normally 0% apr. You apply and then transfer your balance to the new card. This works if you dont have to pay a fee for a balance transfer, so you need to read the fine print very closely. Changing cards all the time will show up in your credit history and banks may look at you twice with concern if you are applying for loan.