Son turns 18 in two weeks...

[Anonymous]

   Not having a joint user on your account is not smart but it does make a reality check. I have 4 kids and I remember my youngest son telling me that when he went to Disney World with his friend who was 16 that he had a credit card and it made it easy to do things.

  I opened my big mouth and said untrue remarks. I stated "that is impossible because you have to be 18 to enter into a legal contract he must have lied"

Well shoot me in the foot I found out about AU's maybe 6 months ago (here) and instantly all my kids have credit cards!

  Yep I even give my materiaistic 17 year old daughter one to keep because she would use her debit card go over her available balance and I would get hit 35 bucks a pop. 5 bucks at MsDonalds PLUS 35 over dreaft, 8 bucks movies PLUS 35 dollar over draft crap in one month I had 700 dollars in over draft charges and the next 300!

 I was afraid of this being reported to check systems and killing me! So no more debit card for the lil monkey, now she has a capital one card with her and her dogs photos on it and poof she cannot go over the limit! Cheaper for me, easier to keep track of and it just works. I forgot my codes to most of my debit cards anyway so I just fell in love with plastic period.

  Bottom line has always been spend within your means and rack up those points baby!

[armywifey85]

I tried to do the same with my son hes 18 and was told he would have to be on my account or me cosign because the age was changed due to the new credit card rules. Is that true?

[MarineVietVet]

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@armywifey85 wrote:

I tried to do the same with my son hes 18 and was told he would have to be on my account or me cosign because the age was changed due to the new credit card rules. Is that true?

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Here is a thread started by creditwherecreditisdue about that very subject:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=creditcard&thread.id=187029

[Anonymous]

As of today, that rule has not gone into effect.  The rule should go into effect in February 2010, but there is legislation pending that would move up the effective date to December 2009.

It might be that that credit card company has voluntarily decided to comply early, and that they have adopted the new rule as their policy (early).

[armywifey85]

yep thats what she said. The Bank is already using that that rule.

[creditwherecreditisdue]

You might want to take a peek at the referenced thread. The full text of the law is posted there.

[pattycake]

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@creditwherecreditisdue wrote:
You might want to take a peek at the referenced thread. The full text of the law is posted there.

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Some banks will use it now, and others will not. 

I'm just curious why life skills classes in high school don't talk about credit and bank accounts.  My eldest took life skills, learned to sew a button and cook, but not balance a checkbook.  Just seems logical that it is a basic function of life...

[mt2va]

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@pattycake wrote:

Some banks will use it now, and others will not. 

I'm just curious why life skills classes in high school don't talk about credit and bank accounts.  My eldest took life skills, learned to sew a button and cook, but not balance a checkbook.  Just seems logical that it is a basic function of life...

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I totally agree with this.  I graduated almost 20 years ago (I feel so old now saying that LOL) and we took sewing, cooking, drafting, wood shop, etc but nothing about finances at all.  (boys and girls both took these classes)  This was in junior high.  In high school we had more choice about what we took so I skipped the shop and home ec type classes.  I did take several computer and accounting classes.  But even accounting doesn't talk about budgeting or balancing a checkbook but rather how to fill out a balance sheet for a business.