Common Uses of Credit Cards after you Graduate

This is a guest post from Jacqui at Ask Mr. Credit Card. Jacqui regularly writes about student credit cards and compares various credit card reward programs.

You’ve graduated! Congratulations! You’ve already taken the first step into building your credit history with student credit cards. Now what do you do? If you were able to keep in good standing with your credit card company, it’s most likely time to upgrade to a regular credit card and continue using it. Do not close out your old account though. Simply quit using it. Closing old accounts can lower your credit score.

If you’ve been able to manage your budget while in college, congratulations again! Now, your credit card company is going to trust you to keep up the good work and keep your credit history in good standing. They may even allow you more money. This is a good and bad thing. Good because as you are now older and quite possibly moving out on your own, you will need items for your new home. Furniture, dishes, etcetera. Sounds fun doesn’t it? It definitely can be! You are an adult now and ready to take that step into your future.

If you’ve had multiple credit cards while you were in school, you may want to look at one of your credit card companies and see about transferring your balances onto one credit card. Use one card to pay down what you built up while in school, and have another for essentials. This is a great tactic if you are going into a career where you start off making less money.

If you are using your credit card to purchase needed items, make sure you are working with the best credit card rewards program. The two that I found to be the best were the Chase Freedom card as well as the Discover card. Why not take advantage and earn rewards while you shop? But remember, you may need to budget your essentials and get rid of the wants. If you buy things you don’t really need you can still rack up some debt. When you rack up debt you might need to go to resources like CreditLoan for solutions. Try to hold off until you are making more money and are able to become less dependent on credit. Whatever you do, keep up with your monthly payments. As long as you are able to make your monthly payments, you are continuing to build your credit history, so keep it up!

(photo credit: chicagogeek)