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Are You Part Of The Plastic Generation?
By Will from Holland
Free Money! Go to any college campus during registration and you'll see students signing up for a free coffee mug or a free t-shirt, and of course a credit card-the required act to get the mug and shirt. Nice! You've automatically become part of the plastic generation.
Open your mail and as a college student you get all the "free" plastic money offers. Nice! The card companies don't seem to care if you have a job or income, so why should you care? You start slapping that card down every place.
Has any of that happened to you yet? If it has, are you part of this scene?
Reality*:
- Half of you are already having trouble paying your credit card bills.
- More than fifty percent of you say your credit card debt impacts your ability to study.
- A quarter of you are thinking about dropping out because of those bills.
- Thirty-one percent of you will be forced to cut your class load and take a job to pay your credit card bills.
- 150,000 students nationwide under 25 will declare bankruptcy this year alone.
What happened?
You just got chumped by the banks. Banks know that about 75 percent of students will keep banking for decades with the first bank that gives them a credit card -even if the students ruin both their credit and their school opportunities with that bank's free credit cards. That's why the banks are throwing plastic at you. They know they'll own you down the road, whether you pay or not.
Don't be a chump. Don't fall for easy plastic.
Our advice?
- Don't get more than one credit card. If you've got more, cut the extras up, and pay the balances off.
- Never make only "minimum" payments on cards. Pay more.
- Don't charge! Pay cash.
- Read our " 5 Credit Cards and Free Goodies" article and learn how to correctly handle your credit cards and balance your checking account.
Make sense? Read more about issues like this in our other articles and be sure to give us your feedback.
Cheers, Will
* According to a study by the University of Oklahoma.
