Beginner's guide to Credit Cards
What I recommend for beginners...
Overview
This is an article on my recommendation for credit cards.
I’ll try to summarize as easily as possible. But the idea is trying to help optimize you for the future if you don’t have that many credit cards right now.
Note though in the beginning, making too many personal card openings can generate a lot of hard inquiries temporarily hurting your credit score. (Is okay though, b/c the primary things that affect your credit score over time is credit card age + no late payments), but don’t over do it.
ALSO, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, if you do not plan to pay off the credit card in full every statement, no 0% APR shenanigans, DO NOT GET A CREDIT CARD. Honestly, I don’t want to encourage people to just fall into credit card debit, b/c you do not want to be one of the millions of Americans struggling to survive their debt. So please, skip this article if you have no self control, or planning to somehow “game the system” by trying to make minimum balance payments so on.
That said, let’s begin:
Chase
Some things to note of is that Chase only allows 5/24 cards, meaning 5 personal cards in 24 months, and if you are at 5 or over, they will reject all your applications with them. Meaning that you should be careful of this as you open some personal cards.
Freedom Unlimited
I recommend to get the Chase Ink Freedom Unlimited
It gets you started into the Chase ecosystem, of the ultimate reward points, which I think are really important since Chase has the most flexible transfer partners in the game. The reward percentage is okay, but again, is just to get started into the Chase ecosystem.
This is a $0 dollar annual fee card.
Apple Card
If you have the ability to get an Apple Card, I highly recommend it. You can if it asks you for income, just put 100K, without proof, and get approved, which is what I did as a freshmen in college. You still get started out with a very low credit limit (mine back then was like 2K or 3K), so it helps you build your credit, but I love it b/c it’s 2% back on everything apple pay, and 3% back on things like Uber / Uber eats.
It also, in my opinion, very transparent about it’s design, on how much you need to pay off, and makes it very easy.
It really was a great card. The other thing I love about it is that I can refresh my card number, letting me exploit infinite free trials:
This is a $0 dollar annual fee card.
Bilt Card
Bilt card, is a great card for rent! If you don’t know already, it basically gives you an account and routing number, which you can provide to your apartment’s portal! By doing so, you basically don’t need to pay any credit card or debit card fee, and Bilt basically every time you pay rent get 1% back in points.
You do need to make 5 total transactions per statement for you to receive the point, but I just buy 5 x 2 dollar apple gift cards, or I just go to the grocery store and check out the items individually.
It also has 3x back on dining, and 2x back on groceries.
This is a $0 dollar annual fee card.
This is a great card for beginners.
Citi Double Cash
Citi double cash is an easy card that is competitive to Apple, since you get 2% back on everything. It’s simple, easy, and basically a free discount.
This is a $0 dollar annual fee card.
Tips
If your parents can add you as an authorized card user to their credit cards, it increases your credit card average age significantly. Since it basically looks as if you had the credit card for as many years as your parents have had it.
In the future cards…
In the future, if you get more advanced, Amex Gold / Amex Platinum are great cards to look into if you have high food cost / high flight costs. These are more advance though, since they have an annual fee and you must know if it makes sense for your spending habit.
Also Chase Preferred vs Chase Reserve cards, are two options to look towards once you get more into traveling. Personally, I have the Chase Preferred since it has some better redemption options for my Chase points, and I find that the Reserve basically is a worst version of my Amex platinum personally to me.