At what age do you make your child an AU?

[I_need_720]

 I just added my 12 year old daughter as an AU to my Barclays Williams-Sonoma Visa and Capital One Quicksilver Mastercard.  In bt caes they asked for for her SSN and DOB - so I know that her report will begin to reflect activity.  

My 12 year old is financially astute.  She only receives 12 dollars every two weeks for allowance and has in a year saved almost $800.  I match her dollar-for dollar for what she puts into her savings account. I also give her a $20 bonus for each $100 milestone she hits. She has truly mastered delayed gratification and has advised me that she is saving for her car which she hopes to get at 16.

[youdontkillmoney]

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@I_need_720 wrote:

 I just added my 12 year old daughter as an AU to my Barclays Williams-Sonoma Visa and Capital One Quicksilver Mastercard.  In bt caes they asked for for her SSN and DOB - so I know that her report will begin to reflect activity.  

My 12 year old is financially astute.  She only receives 12 dollars every two weeks for allowance and has in a year saved almost $800.  I match her dollar-for dollar for what she puts into her savings account. I also give her a $20 bonus for each $100 milestone she hits. She has truly mastered delayed gratification and has advised me that she is saving for her car which she hopes to get at 16.

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^^^^

She is a saver, that's great! She can buy herself something big later.

When I was a kid my allowance was 50 cents a week, then eventually it went up to maybe $5 a week.

I'm 40.

[Anonymous]

A tip I found in my USAA magazine, a few months back:

The gentleman in question took his 18 year old son to the local credit union, where he already had a savings account. The son applied for a amall Share Secured Loan (the funds in his savings account were his loan security). The loan funds were deposited back into the savings account and payments set up to auto-withdraw from the same account. Six months later the account was paid in full and the kid had a good credit record to build from.

I did the same thing in an effort to rebuild my own credit and it appears to be working.

My girls both have savings accounts at our CU and I'll do the same thing when they're of age.

[vanillabean]

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@kkesilis wrote:

Six months later the account was paid in full and the kid had a good credit record to build from.

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Very good advice, as having an installment loan matters. As for a card to start out with, I noticed the "Northwest Federal Credit Union FirstCard Visa Platinum, which is designed for people who don’t yet have a credit history. It has no annual fee, a fixed 10% APR (which is very low, given the average of 15.61%), and a $1,000 credit limit (also very low, so you can’t get into too much trouble).”

[Anonymous]

My half-brother is 17, I added him as an AU to my cards that typically have lowest UTL.

I feel it's had it's part in teaching him how to be fiscally responsible.

[Anonymous]

I received my first credit card at 14. My mother told me when she gave it to me that life revolves around this (credit), be careful. If you f with it, you will regret it for years. Now of coarse, that came from a banker, so, she was pretty straight forward with me about it. It worked for me.

[surferchris]

Wow, lots of great advice here.  I have already added my daughter to one credit card.  She takes it with her when she goes out with her friends and only spends what I allow (generally $20).  Then she pays the card each month from her allowance.  It seems to be working for her.

[Anonymous]

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@Revelate wrote:

I'd add them as an AU as soon as I was legally able to.

Whether I give them the card or not is dependent on a lot of other things, but I suspect if I ever do have teenage kids I'll be able to set boundaries where required.

I've lost major ground in my life by having a cash-based existence (which a debit card is, I wore the numbers off), that I'd attempt to expose them to what I consider the right way of doing things as soon as possible.  Beyond the usual platitudes a goal is to raise kids who are more successful than you are, this is one such axis where they should be educated to do better than I did.

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But ppl adding their 10 YO accounts on their 18 teen.. ... ?

[zerbherb]

I think i am the complete opposite of this. Dad gave me my first card at 17, i now have a better credit score then him  its even low right now because of his card. Also not to mention 2 prime cards at 20 years old is not bad at all.

He didn't really teach me anything, you  guys did. Thats why my score is great and why i will be able to get the big boy cards right out of college when i'm making 40-60 grand a year. 

[Anonymous]

My dad added me as an AU when I was 6, then again when I was 22.  I got my first personal card at 23, I know how to manage my finances.  As a result, my scores are >750, I have >$60,000 in credit personally available with only 14 months of real history backing me

Huge shout out to my dad for building my credit portfolio long before I knew what credit was.