Would like advice on current finance for future CC

[zet9biq01]

Hi Everyone,

I would like some advice with what I should currently do as a 21 year old in college and wanting a Chase Freedom, Fidelity Amex, or Penfed Platnium Cash Rewards in the near future. One day I plan to get the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

BoA Cash Rewards Visa $2K- 09/2009

Costco Amex $5K - 06/2010

Discover IT(PC from More) $1.75K - 02/2012

Chase Amazon Visa $1.7K - 05/2012

Target $2K - 08/2012 AU for 3 others

Citi Forward $3K - 10/2012 AU for 2 others

US Bank Cash+ $6K 09/2012 Joint with mother.

My TU FAKO from CreditKarma is 730 and EX from US Bank is 734. 

I ALWAYS pay each balance in full each month and sometimes pay before the next balance to lower the credit utilization for my CR. My main cards are Citi Forward and Discover right now while US Bank Cash+, Costco Amex, and Target supplement any required spending for bills, utilities, gas, and groceries. I only keep my BoA because it's my oldest tradeline and I regret opening the Chase Amazon because I don't have any use for it anymore with the Citi Forward to replace it. I pretty much deal with paying all the bills and finance in my family so I've ended up opening different cards to earn cashback on required spending.

I also have $23K in student loans and going to have another $5 on top of that for staying in school next year.On top of that, I also have 60 month car loan 2.79APR cosigned with my mother with $10K remaining from 10 months ago and I'm ahead of payments by at least 5 months. I earn less than $7K a year with my current job including workstudy. I'm trying not to depend on my mother anymore for credit besides the US Bank Cash+ so she can hopefully refinance the home mortgage (this is a whole other hell that I can't really deal with right now). I'm pretty much really low income with a really high total credit limit and a ticking time bomb of student loans in the near future.

[BornSupercharged]

In my opinion I'd save your money instead of paying your car loan off quicker. I just prefer to have money in the bank and pay the loan to its regular terms, because having liquid cash is much more valuable to me than only have 45 car payments left vs 50. Will having 5 less car payments help you pay your rent/monthly living expenses? Nope.  

Cash is king.

With time, you'll have no problem getting more cards. But I cannot recommend you to get more credit cards while your income is so low, it's a recipe for disaster. 

[LS2982]

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@BornSupercharged wrote:

In my opinion I'd save your money instead of paying your car loan off quicker. I just prefer to have money in the bank and pay the loan to its regular terms, because having liquid cash is much more valuable to me than only have 45 car payments left vs 50. Will having 5 less car payments help you pay your rent/monthly living expenses? Nope.  

Cash is king.

With time, you'll have no problem getting more cards. But I cannot recommend you to get more credit cards while your income is so low, it's a recipe for disaster. 

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This is good advice!!

Welcome to the forums OP!!!!

[zet9biq01]

I have financial aid to cover rent and living expenses for the time being and work covers extra. But I'm basically living off my mother's income whenever I'm short which I'm trying to wean off of. Paying more early with the car loan payments was my mother's insistence at wanting to finish it off early. Since I keep track of her bank accounts and other financial matters at home, I've been seeing her point of view in terms of paying it off early since cash is just sitting in the bank and losing value due to depreciation. I'm starting to research into investments for long term future also but haven't jumped the gun into it. It's a terrible thing for me to want more cards for their rewards especially with my income and I'm trying to rationalize how bad it is to continue. The weird thing I see how I use the credit cards which I've recently obtained in the past 6 months is to make expenses easier to deal with in my family especially to pay for bills at home and ending up putting most of those bills on my cards. One thing I would note is that I would never ever carry a balance on any credit card; I'm pretty scarred from fixing my father's credit debts that he couldn't afford and didn't bother to pay. Gas is a major chunk of spending that kills me the most hence the want for either a chase freedom or penfed. I wanted a third party opinion with my current situation to have a better sense of how others see it. Thanks alot for the advice so I wouldn't jump the gun on any new credit lines or do something stupid (like trying to get chase freedom and getting rid of the chase amazon in exchange which I really want to get rid of). I would like to know if paying off the car loan earlier would still not be a better idea with the information I just gave too.