how do credit cards work?

Originally Posted by lincpimp

Yep, any credit is better than none...

I have no credit, while my wife has decent credit.

If you have no credit, lenders have no idea what you will do. Even mediocre credit shows some sort of history, and they will raise the interest rates for people with less than ideal credit.

Exactly!

The crazy thing is, no credit is a bigger risk than not so good credit to creditors. Lincpimp is probably more than capable of paying back a line of credit, but will get passed up whereas someone who just got done filing for bankruptcy would have a much higher chance of getting a credit card. They know you can't file again for another 7 or so years so they will get their money. I'm not saying someone with bad credit history will get good rates or anything, but they stand a better chance of getting it than someone with no history. I think it should be mandatory for responsible money/credit management classes in high school the way things are going these days. It would save alot of hassle and learning the hard way like the way I had to learn. I started off bad with a student loan and realized that if I wanted something better, I gotta take care of it and pull through all the really high rates and bad deals to get to where I'm at today (754 :D ) I'm not condoning bad credit, just merely pointing out the importance of establishing credit in today's society.