A Credit Card? For Me? Yipee!

That was Chelsea's comment a couple of days ago when she opened some mail that had come for her. I of course screeched to a halt the towel folding I was doing and said "Umm, what? You got a credit card?" She was all giddy and excited when she said "Yea. I think so. Isn't that cool?"

In my mind I was screaming "Ok, what village idiot sent my daughter a credit card? I will take ahold of you where you don't want me to grab ahold of and I'll twist it into a pretzel!" Instead, I stayed calm and practiced my labor breathing techniques. I never used them when I was actually in labor, but it's nice to know they eventually came in handy.

So I took this opportunity to talk with her regarding credit cards. Jay and I have one credit card. Well, actually Jay has one. We were both sent one from the same company, but I cut mine up. We only have that card for when we feel it's absolutely necessary. We used it when we went on our Disney trip last fall so we wouldn't have to carry so much cash with us. Prior to that, I honestly can't remember the last time we used it or when we'll ever use it again. We used to have a couple of them shortly after we got married, and we found one card was getting a higher and higher balance and we knew how quickly we could get ourselves into trouble, so we cut up all our cards (except the one) and paid the balances off.

Sitting at the table I could almost see Chelsea drooling as she thought about all the stuff she could buy with this card. I snapped my fingers in front of her to bring her back to reality "Yoohoo...earth to Chelsea".

"So how soon can I use this?" she asked with a Christmas morning type of smile on her face. "I imagine right away. But, let's play out a few scenarios first...

What do you plan to buy with that card?" "I dunno"
"What is the interest amount on that card?" "I dunno"
"What is the spending limit on that card?" "I dunno"

"When are payments due by on that card?" "I dunno"

"How do you plan to pay for that card?" "Don't you do it?" Nope. Welcome to adulthood.

After explaining interest costs and other possible fees and combining that with the fact that she has no income, which means she can't pay for the things she charges, she started to get it and realize how easy it would be to get into real trouble very quickly. I informed her that if she does that often enough, she'll get sent to jail and have her first experience getting strip searched by a large crabby looking lady named Bertha. "If you can't afford to pay for it without a credit card, then you don't need it."

She agreed to shred the card and handed it to me. Before I shredded it, I looked it over to see exactly what card it was and I noticed it said "DMACC" on it. hhhmmm...interesting. I read the paperwork that came with it and found out it wasn't a credit card at all. It was her new student ID that she needs to enter certain buildings after hours.

God bless our blonde roots.