Best Credit Card for a student?

bowser85

Hello All,

I'm really sorry if someone has asked this question before but I am not very wise when it comes to Credit Cards, I've never owned one.

What would be the best card for me? I will probably spend £1000 this year on various things and my sister is telling me to get a credit card.

Can someone advice me on a good credit card and what all this APR stuff is about,


Sorry for any hassle caused.

Frank

grumbler

APR is Annual Percentage Rate - the interest rate you pay on your debt.
For credit cards you don't pay any interest as long as you pay your balance in full and in time every month (effectively you have up to about 50 days interst-free period on your purchases). In this case APR is irrelevant for you. In your case when you don't have any credit history you don't have a lot of cards to chose from. Most of banks have some student CC. It is better to start with the bank you have account with. Use this card to build a good credit history for the future - never go over your limit and never miss payments (use Direct Debit). Later you will be able to chose better cards - with cashback, rewards, ...

CREDIT CARDS - WHICH IS RIGHT FOR ME? - Martin's article.

Also: Credit cards for students thread.

Robert_Sterling_3

What the APR stuff is all about

Stevenj214

bowser85 wrote:

Hello All,

I'm really sorry if someone has asked this question before but I am not very wise when it comes to Credit Cards, I've never owned one.

What would be the best card for me? I will probably spend £1000 this year on various things and my sister is telling me to get a credit card.

Can someone advice me on a good credit card and what all this APR stuff is about,


Sorry for any hassle caused.

Frank

Are you intending to pay it off? When?

The higher the APR is, the more interest you pay.

Example: You have a debt of £1000 on a credit card with 18% APR. If you pay nothing towards it, after a year, that debt is £1180.

Probably a better alternative would be a student bank account with 0% overdraft.

The best overall solution would be to not get into debt in the first place. You'll have a great time spending it, but then a hard time getting out of debt.

Student loan + bursary + part time job is easily enough to live on.