I remember how excited I was when I turned 18 and got offered my first credit card. My family always told me to not get one because they thought I was too young to have debt. I didn’t listen. I ignored their advice because I thought that I was going to make purchases with the credit card and pay the bill in full each month. I mean, I was working, so that seemed do-able to me.

I was able to do that for the first few months, but then it got out of control. You see…department stores draw you in by offering a discount on your first purchase if you open up a charge account with them. Most stores will also increase your credit limit as time goes by. Once your credit limit increases, you’re likely to spend more. You’ll probably end up charging most of your purchases because you either don’t have the cash or you need it for something else. Little by little the bill goes up and up and even though you work, you have other things to spend money on, so you can no longer pay your bill off each month. All of a sudden you’re stuck in this cycle, where every time you go to that store, you like something and you charge it on your credit card. The result is that your bill keeps increasing until you can’t shop anymore because you’ve maxxed-out your credit card.

I speak from experience. I started with one credit card and now I have 6… Getting into the habit of accepting credit card offers and shopping with plastic is easy, but getting out of debt is very hard. At first, I really did try to pay off the full amount on my bill each month, but then I couldn’t because I had other bills to pay. If I could go back in time I wouldn’t have accepted so many credit card offers. Without credit cards I wouldn’t have spent as much money and I probably would have realized that I didn’t need half the stuff I bought. I realize it now and I’m working on paying off all of my debt with the help of National Debt Relief. (I finished paying off one credit card and have 5 to go). Even though I bought a lot of things on sale, I probably paid twice the amount for every item I bought because of all the interest that added up.

My advice to you: Don’t be drawn in by all the credit offers you get. Buy with cash or get a debit card, and shop with your own money, not borrowed money.

-Erica