What Is Normal at 19?

[chalupaman]

I'm the same age as you are just finished with my freshman (took a year off from school before) so I can really quite relate. I'd try applying for the Discover It card for students or the Capital One Journey card (pretty easy to get for the most part) if discover doesn't work out. I had plenty of inquiries unfortunately but was still able to get both with no problem because of good payment history on my Forward card.

[cloudchase]

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@chalupaman wrote:

I'm the same age as you are just finished with my freshman (took a year off from school before) so I can really quite relate. I'd try applying for the Discover It card for students or the Capital One Journey card (pretty easy to get for the most part) if discover doesn't work out. I had plenty of inquiries unfortunately but was still able to get both with no problem because of good payment history on my Forward card.

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I've been considering either Discover IT for students or the CITI Thank You Preferred for students, but I haven't read many reviews on the Wells Fargo student card. How is it?

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@DaveSignal wrote:

Discover IT offers a Student card, which I think you could get now with your 6 months revolving history.  One inquiry from February that is clearly not associated with a new account is not going to hurt your chances.

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So it'll only hurt my score if it's from opening a new account?

[DaveSignal]

The Discover IT 5% cash back is probably a better value than Citi Thank You points, unless you don't want cash back and prefer finding gift cards or travel purchases to get a decent value from the TY points.  Otherwise, for cash back, they are worth half a cent each.

[chalupaman]

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@cloudchase wrote:

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@chalupaman wrote:

I'm the same age as you are just finished with my freshman (took a year off from school before) so I can really quite relate. I'd try applying for the Discover It card for students or the Capital One Journey card (pretty easy to get for the most part) if discover doesn't work out. I had plenty of inquiries unfortunately but was still able to get both with no problem because of good payment history on my Forward card.

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I've been considering either Discover IT for students or the CITI Thank You Preferred for students, but I haven't read many reviews on the Wells Fargo student card. How is it?

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@DaveSignal wrote:

Discover IT offers a Student card, which I think you could get now with your 6 months revolving history.  One inquiry from February that is clearly not associated with a new account is not going to hurt your chances.

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So it'll only hurt my score if it's from opening a new account?

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So far, the card's pretty good. It was one of the ones I had wanted from the start but couldn't get because of a charge off I had to pay on a joint account that I had with them long before I was able to be old enough to have CCs in the first place. I paid it off in full, opened another account with them and made sure I had enough better banking history to reapply with them again. They initally denied me but after a recon, I was approved for it the next day.

Citi Thank You Preferred for Students I don't know that much about. I'm hoping to get my current card converted into one of those because they stopped Forward apps about a week or so ago and the rewards are kind of better than what the Forward has right now for restaurants and stuff like that. More points now for that category. I like how with my Cap 1 card that when I use, they reward me with cashback rewards in real time so I don't have to wait too long to be able to redeem them.

[user5387]

Another thought here would be to cultivate a long-term relationship with a couple of good CUs.

These can help you in a variety of ways, for example by giving you high-limit CCs.

[cloudchase]

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@user5387 wrote:

Another thought here would be to cultivate a long-term relationship with a couple of good CUs.

These can help you in a variety of ways, for example by giving you high-limit CCs.

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That is exactly why my first CC, which is my only one so far, is from a CU. The CU I'm with gives really low interest rates on loans, including credit cards, and I assume that's a common thing that CU's do.

[chalupaman]

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@user5387 wrote:

Another thought here would be to cultivate a long-term relationship with a couple of good CUs.

These can help you in a variety of ways, for example by giving you high-limit CCs.

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I am so tempted to try that later this year. I have an account with a credit union that I never really use. Had it for about over a year now but have always been reluctant to apply for one of their cards. I kept thinking that the much lower APRs they have would make it much more difficult to get those cards. It's GA United Credit Union for me.

What other credit unions could I look at just in case that tend to not have a difficult approval process assuming that I've developed that relationship with them and all?

[user5387]

I'm not sure that lower APRs make the CC harder to get.

CUs have a fundamentally different business model, and many of the CCs don't have rewards, so things are different.

A list of CUs in your area can be found here:

http://www.creditcardconnection.org

[DaveSignal]

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@cloudchase wrote:

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@DaveSignal wrote:

Discover IT offers a Student card, which I think you could get now with your 6 months revolving history.  One inquiry from February that is clearly not associated with a new account is not going to hurt your chances.

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So it'll only hurt my score if it's from opening a new account?

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 Sorry I missed this before.  Your one inq does not affect your FICO score enough to make a difference in your approval odds.  The only thing to be aware of is that when a lender looks and sees a whole bunch of inqs before applying with them, they are wondering why you are suddenly opening so many new accounts and seeking new credit with so many people.... it could case alarm and might cause a denial without even considering your score.  They are not going to think anything like that, though, when they see 1 inquiry from a few months ago that isn't even related to a new account.

[takeshi74]

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@cloudchase wrote:

What Is Normal at 19?

Does normal really matter? Do the best that you can for yourself. It sounds like you're off to a good start and this site is a useful resource.

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@cloudchase wrote:

Recently, I have thought about getting a second credit card some time in the next year. Is this a good idea?

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For scoring purposes it helps to have at least 2-3 cards but you have to go with what you can responsibly manage and carefully select cards that will actually be useful to you.

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@azguy13 wrote:

As to your question about the student loan, I am not 100% sure. Student loans are the one area I am really not too familiar with. 

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For the student loans I'd guess it's DTI and/or loan balance to loan amount but don't take my word on it.  I still have student loans that I'm paying and the impact isn't as much but my DTI is low and my student loan balances are also low.

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@azguy13 wrote:

I will say this though; no matter if you have a 450 or an 850, there will ALWAYS be something written under things that are hurting your credit score. Honestly, if you do not have any derogs on that account, I would not worry about it.  

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Yup.  My TU Fico is 796 and utilization is right around 10%.  Despite that I have "% of balances to credit limits is too high on revolving accounts" listed as a negative factor.  Sometime those messages are helpful.  Sometimes you have to take them with a grain of salt.  Sometimes they're like a performance review where the supervisor just has to find a negative to jot down on the review even if it really isn't all that significant.