Monday, June 9, 2014

The Card

Jenna and I were at Think Bank, Friday, after she helped me shovel a load of compost. She was depositing her graduation money and the teller was just making small talk. She asked Jenna where she was going to school and if she was excited about it.

Then the conversation turned to "the card" and it is interesting what Jenna's reaction was...

The teller asked her if she had a debit card and Jenna said not yet. A debit card is no different than a check which takes money "you have" from your savings account.

Then she suggested she get a "credit card", for those little emergencies that come up. Jenna and I just looked at each other and smiled a some what knowing smile as Jenna has been through the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class. Catching that look the teller suggested this would be the right course of action... right. We both said, "No, not really". We knew that the right way to handle emergencies was to have an emergency fund of $500 to $1000, which Jenna has.

So then the teller said you should use it to "establish credit" and again we politely said "no thanks". We weren't planning to use credit. We are in the habit of saving ahead for major purchase, like college and cars.

Jenna later observed that a student like herself would have no business going into debt. Instead of helping, almost every scenario we could come up with would be negative for the students future, because, "the borrower is slave to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7).

I pointed out to Jenna that the teller was just doing her job to encourage the credit card, because that is a very profitable service the bank offers.

Many of our seniors do not have this type of training to be able to recognize the pit falls in credit. Parents need to make their students aware before leaving home and if at all possible get them some training like Financial Pease University.

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