Credit cards?........

[84LX89GT]

When i was poor and in college, i would buy stuff with my card and within a couple of weeks (before the interest would add up) i would pay off the balance. In the last year i went kind of nuts and got my credit debt up to $5500, the last few months i've gotten it down to $3400 but still.....it's AMAZING how fast things add up when you've got $16,500 in credit lines (credit card companies will up your credit limits after you've established good credit). I would think to myself, there's nothing on "this" card....but there's $1,000 or so I just spent on another card for stuff. I get card offers all the time and it's hard to resist the "free" money.

The only thing good about credit debt is that it really builds credit when you get in the hole and you start paying it off in large amounts. My credit score went from a respectable 680 rating up to 740 after paying off two cards completely and paying $300 a month on two seperate cards for a few months.

The most important thing i can tell you is PAY ON TIME, also something interesting i've found out is that if you call the card company, alot of times if you tell them that another card will give you a better APR or credit limit, that card company will drop your APR and/or raise your limit. one of my cards went from 12% apr down to 7.9% because i asked them to lower it.