5 Tips for Managing Your First Credit Card

As you hold your first credit card in your hand, you may wonder what to do next.

What will you buy? How much will you spend? What will you do to avoid financial disaster?

These are the types of questions that are sure to be floating around your head. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to answer these questions, among others, to ensure that you manage your credit card with a high level of success.

Here are five tips to follow:

1. Know the terms and conditions of the credit card. From the interest rate to the fee schedule, you don’t want to be surprised by anything.

2. Understand the finer details of your interest rate. Do you have a 0 percent introductory rate? How about a variable rate? If you don’t have a solid grasp of this, it could come back to haunt you in the future.

3. Pay in full and on time. It should be your goal to never carry a credit card balance from one month to the next. When you avoid doing so, you know you’ll never be charged interest. Furthermore, you’ll never find your debt accumulating.

4. Set a budget. It’s easy for your spending to get out of control when using a credit card. For this reason, you need to set a budget and stick with it no matter what happens. This makes it easier to payoff your balance at the end of each cycle.

5. Ask questions. If you have questions about your credit card, no matter what they may be, reach out to your issuer for answers. They should be more than willing to provide you with clear and accurate answers that can help you make better decisions in the future.

With these five tips on your side, you should find it much easier to manage your first credit card.

Would you add any other advice to this list?