The Importance Of Credit Cards

A great amount of teenagers feel the need to obtain a credit card and not want to deal with cash. Now there are even prepaid cards for teenagers ages 13 through 18 that allow parents to transfer allowance money onto the card. Even credit cards allow co-signers sign for those who are under the age of 18, and most teenagers who obtain a credit card are at fault for going into debt for spending money that the teenager does not have instead of spending the cash that is in hand. Having a prepaid card for teenagers that parents can put money onto whenever needed is an honest good idea. In the article “Money: Paper Or Plastic?” Linda Stern states “Recommended for kids ages 13 and up, the Payjr Prepaid MasterCard (payjr.com) wraps the card in an elaborate allowance system, transferring money as soon as parents sign off on the Web site that the chores are done” (1). With this kind of card, children can be rewarded directly after doing the chores. Although rewarding children in cash would be just as fast sometimes parents do not have cash at hand. While having cash is great, teenagers cannot spend cash online,

In the Article “Should teens have credit cards?” it states “It is better to operate on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis than use credit” (1). Spending a credit card is using money that a young adult does not have if they really needed to charge it to a credit card. It is safer to spend the cash that the teenager actually does have that way they do not owe any money to a credit card company. In the article “Should teens have credit cards?” it also states “Spending too much—a mistake easily made—an run up debts that it takes months or years and may even lead to a bad credit rating” (1). A young adult that uses a credit card instead of cash at hand is leading that young adult down a bad road. Using a card to pay for something that a young adult does not have the cash to pay for, leads to