Posted on 04/18/2005 9:49:49 AM PDT by Willie Green
NEW YORK -- The credit card generation is getting younger.
A recent poll of teenagers who participate in the Junior Achievement program found that more than 11 percent are carrying credit cards, and some of them are as young as 13 or 14 years old. In addition, three out of 10 teenagers have checking accounts, and many are likely linked to automated teller machines with debit cards.
"We were a little surprised at the numbers," said Darrell Luzzo, senior vice president for education at JA Worldwide, which is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo. "Having a credit card is not necessarily a terrible thing, so long as they're being educated about the appropriate financial principles."
But while 82 percent of the teen credit card users said they paid their bills in full every month, 18 percent said they carried balances over -- a practice that has gotten a lot of their parents in trouble.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Not in this household.
yeah so?
I had a checking account and a credit card when I was 14....
big whoopie....
"Think what you do when you run into debt;
you give another power over your liberty."-- Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)
Easy solution: parents should put a limit in the credit of cards. It's a good way of teaching teenagers financial responsibility.
Our daughter will get a credit card when she's old enough to sign for it herself!
I don't see what's wrong with a checking account and a debit card, per se.
When I was a teen, I had a job.
Since they have a credit card, doesn't that mean that they can now sign up for porn sites?
I guess that would make attempts to control porn by limiting it only to credit card holders would be futile.
amen
not if your parents are involved, but I guess that is just too advanced for some to think of then huh?
like I said, big whoopie....
My cousin's ex-wife got both her daughters credit cards and maxed them out without them knowing it, then died shortly thereafter. Lovely thing to do to your children. God rest her soul, she wasn't all there in the end.
I had a bank account when I was six.
My teens have jobs and are smart enough not to have credit cards. At least in NJ they can't get a checking account without parents co-sigs, so they will wait until adulthood for that too.
Just cos some are spoiled and don't care doesn't make it right. ;)
Clearly you were a very responsible, mature teenager. :-)
Once my daughter has a job, then a checking account/debit card will make sense.
I don't want her to get into the habit of deficit spending with a credit card, which is why I won't advance her allowance to go shopping at the mall. She needs to learn the concept of living within her means, and a credit card would defeat that lesson.
I had a checking account when I was a teen. However, I was raised on the principle if you can't pay cash for it, you don't need it.
Hey, I still have checks, so I still have money!
"Charley Rubbercheck" himself!
That was my first lesson in personal finance. Checks don't equal cash if you don't have the dollars in the account. They bounce! I learned to keep my spending at reasonable limit after that debacle.
Our nine year old son has rec'd some CC applications in the mail since we used his name to subscribe to a kids magazine.
Good heads up article by the way. Thanks for posting.
Cheers!
Cut them up. Cash is king.
"My cousin's ex-wife got both her daughters credit cards and maxed them out without them knowing it, then died shortly thereafter."
Same thing happened to a close friend of mine. She gets a call at work from a credit card company telling her she needs to pay her bill....come to find out....it was her mom who got a credit card in her name. To this day her mother still believes she did nothing wrong.
I started mowing a graveyard. I had to have a credit card for gas and stuff like that, especially when I was 16 and older.
my parents cosigned and everything and they made sure I knew exactly what had I had on the card and what I had in the checking account...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.