25 News' Heather Healy spoke with a student and a coffee shop manger on the topic of credit cards, and a local a financial expert weighed in on how to shop for one.
BROADCAST SCRIPT:
20-year-old California native and Common Grounds Coffee Shop Manager Aubrie Ruble, has a unique story.
“I'm paying for college entirely on my own, and just the idea of being in debt for the rest of my life as drastically as I would have been if I would have stayed at Baylor was just so overbearing,” Ruble said.
She's making a big decision to keep her debt from skyrocketing.
“I decided to withdraw and take a different route for school, that made a little more sense for me and for my budget,” she said.
She's sticking to a budget, building a strong credit, and adapting strong financial habits.
She's 20-years-old with two credit cards and no credit card debt, but how?
“I was in a financial class my senior year of high school and we learned about credit cards, which was really cool,” Ruble said.
This helped helped her to get a grasp on her finances.
According to Sally Mae, the average college student graduates with $4,000 in credit card debt, if not more.
Incoming Baylor senior Sharon Almon says she didn’t know where to start when she got her card.
“I really didn’t look into it that much, and even if I would have I wouldn’t have known what to look for in the different types,” she said.
Here's what to look for when shopping for credit cards —
“Will this credit card help me build credit?”, said local Community Loan Originator at Amplify Credit Union and Belton resident, Justin Hargrove.
“The next thing you’ll want to know is, what fees are associated with using this credit card, does this credit card have a rewards program — that’s really important — what is the credit card limit? The higher the credit limit the better."
And most importantly...
“Make sure you read the fine print, understand the rate, understand the terms, and understand the fees so that there are no surprises,” Hargrove said.
