Credit cards are wonderful if you have money to pay for what you buy. If you don't pay your debt completely, you can have serious problems. In a few years, you could have your own credit card and you should know how to use it. Let's look an example.

Imagine you go to a mall with your friends or with your parents and you buy clothes, a new camera and some DVDs. The total bill is two hundred dollars. You pay with a credit card. The next month, your bank statement arrives. You need to pay your credit card. Imagine you only have one hundred dollars to pay your debt. Now you will have to pay interest. This means you now owe more than one hundred dollars. If tou follow this pattern every month, you quickly owe more interest than the original expenses! For example, a one hundred dollar debt can became a five hundred dollar debt. You will never be able to pay back that much money.

Many adults ignore the dangers of spending with credit cards and they have terrible debts. Ask in your family if people have (or have had) problems with credit cards. You may be surprised about their experiences.

To be on the safe side, you should not spend more than forty or forty-five dollars. What if you have an emergency and need some extra money? If you see your credit card, write down how much you spend. It is very easy to forget that you already reached your limit for the month.

Savings

Sometimes you recive more money than you need, for example, for your birthday. You can save this money and use it for emergencies. There is an expression that says, "Money doesn't grow on trees. " It means that it's not easy to get money, so be careful with it!

	Created by Jade Monreal about 9 years ago

El dinero atreves de la historia.