student first CC dilema

kingjimbob

Hi all,

im 20, just finished 2nd year of uni, and in two months about to start a 16K work placement for the year. now being at the end of 2nd year my finances aren't looking too good and even tho ive got a PT job its only 15 hours a week (all i could get at the time!) and pretty soon ive gotto find a deposit and months rent in advance for when i move up to my work placement, ive also gotto find money to live on for the first month while on placement. ive got a bit of capital but trust me its no where near enough!

so i was hoping i could get a credit card, as halifax had offered me a card pletny of times in the past, esp when i was in decent full time work! now it comes in the crunch and need a card, they wouldn't extend my student overdraft even though i could prove to them in a couple months i will be ploughing over a grand a month into my account! and when applying for a halifax one card was rejected, even though i have been loyal cust and always repaid off my overfradt at the end of the year.

so im buggered anybody got any advice on what i could do? over than get a full time job (which im currently on the look out for, but not many ppl wanting to take on some1 whos only gonno be about for 4 weeks max!

jimclark1967

Try different credit card companies - you'll get one no problem on £16K

Egg (green card) gave me a credit limit more than 3 times bigger than my student Barclaycard (I'm not actually 38 as my user name would suggest )

JC

newfoundglory

You shouldn't have any trouble getting a card, but getting a card which is a good deal might be difficult to obtain depending on your credit file and how much information is on it.

I would suggest you get a copy of your credit file from both Equifax and Experian, and see if any account you have is on there (eg. current account, mobile phone contract etc). You will of course want to check that any information on it is correct first, then see how much positive repayment history you have (you will be looking for lots of 0000000's). You will also want to check to see if Halifax reports how much your overdrawn balance is, as if its on there any credit card application which performs a search of your file will see how much you already owe; potentially counting negatively against any application.

If there are no accounts on your credit file, ie you have no credit history, then obtaining cards from anything other than your own bank could be difficult. Lenders like Barclays and Capital One seem to lend to virtually anyone, with high interest-rates.

If you want to avoid paying interest, you need to look at the interest free period and see if its going to be long enough for you to repay the balance in full. If not, then ideally you probably want a card which offers 0% on purchases for say at least 5 or 6 months from account opening... eg. Morgan Stanley Gold.

kingjimbob

Ta ppl, youve been a brilliant help!

i will try few more cards then, obvious 0% would be perfect because i plan to pay off any debt on any credit card i get within the first month of my pay cheques coming in!