I thought about this while I was reading the IMHO ‘help my use my new credit card wisely’ thread, so here I am, starting another “pointless” spinoff.
To be complete… the first major or bank credit card you ever owned, visa/master/amex/discover or thereabouts, what were the first two or three financial transactions you used it for? :]
I got my mastercard after I’d been at my job as a web programmer for two months or so. And the first things I ordered with it were:
a book off of chapters-indigo, “Mastering Active Server Pages”,
a CD, carolyn dawn johnson’s ‘room with a view.’ (My gawd, has it really been more than three years that I’ve owned that album? )
a startup payment on an ASP web hosting provider, brinkster, for personal learning purposes.
Looking back, I have to say that I’m pleased with those purchases. I’m not with brinkster any more (cost cutting,) but it was a good service at the time. I still love the album and though I don’t refer to the book much anymore, I learned an awful lot from it!! (I’d actually gotten that same book out of the library to take to work my first day, and was feeling lost without it when I returned it to the library three weeks later. That’s when I knew I needed to buy my own copy, LOL.)
I’m the OP of said thread and I’ve yet to use it. (it’s a Visa)
I’ll probably break it in at Border’s or Amazon on a Deep Space Nine book since, as one poster in the thread said, if it sits in my wallet unused, it isn’t helping my credit.
I really don’t remember #s 2 & 3, but the first was done with a cash advance. It was a Peavey Mk. IV bass amp, a speaker box with 2 12" speakers and a Fender Precision bass.
That was the molehill that I managed to make into a mountain of unsecured credit debt, which is now all gone. I haven’t used a credit card since 1996.
This is embarassing but I’m posting it so you may learn from my mistakes.
My first purchase (that I can remember) was a limited edition Dezo Hoffman Beatles photograph print. It was I think around $800. At the time I was 16 years old and making about $50 a week at my part-time job. By the time I loaded clothes, music, concert tickets, gas, etc on that card I was under an insurmountable debt in a matter of months. Never use charge cards to charge what you can’t afford (except in the case of emergency, like your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.) Only use it for things you know you can cover but don’t want to carry the cash around for.
Wrongest (heh) credit card advice: “Never use a credit card to pay for food.” The reasoning behind this is if you carry a balance you end up paying interest on something that’s GONE and you have nothing to show for it. I no longer carry a balance (praise Jebus) but since I now have an Amazon.com credit card I earn Amazon.com gift certificates for every 2500 points accumulated. ($1 = one point. $1 spent on Amazon.com = 3 point.) That credit card gets used for EVERYTHING and paid in full at the end of the month. I’ve had it for around 1 year and a half and have enjoyed around $150 in free books. Sweet.
Oh, I forgot to say that when I went home to visit my parents on Spring Break a couple years later my then roommate took the Beatles print out of the frame and used it to frame a cheap calendar picture. He then proceeded to put his coffee cup on the print so there’s now a big brown ring on it. [Felix Unger]NOW IT’S GARBAGE![/Felix Unger]
I broke down and bought that. I have the money to cover it – including shipping and handling, it’s less than $22 – but I already feel anxious for having used it.
Except for gas, nothing else is going on it for the forseeable future.
After persuading the bank that I was a good enough risk to be issued a credit card (which I did by by describing my occupation as *actuarial trainee * rather than student), my first purchases were my first year university text books.
A plague doctor mask (mine), a beaded mask (for wifey) and a cat mask(for friend) in Venice
A Pig-faced Bascinet (Mine, all mine!!!) in Conwy, Wales
Some silver Celtic knotwork jewellery (for wife, to make up for bascinet) at the Natural History Museum, London
Got my first credit card just before our 1st anniversary trip to Europe.
It has been over twenty years since I got my first credit card, so the exact items would be hard to pin down, but I do remember it was a department store card (Dayton’s) so I would assume my first purchases were clothes. :rolleyes:
I got my first card about a month ago. I didn’t use it at all in the first week. The very first thing I bought was a sub from Subway. The second was about four days later when I bought some gas and a Coke. The third was yesterday (Tuesday) when I bought another sub from Subway. I paid the balance in full, but it was under $20. I have been tempted to buy both volumes of Family Guy on DVD, but those are almost $30 each! I’ll wait a little longer for that.
Hell, I don’t remember that far back. But I do know the first credit card I got was for Zales jewelers. Why they’d send a card (unsolicited–they could do that back then) to a 20YO making about $9K a year, I don’t know.) But I used it to buy a ($200) mother’s ring for my mom for Christmas. My stepdad paid part. Then I got a Visa and I have no idea what I used it for.
Curiously, I think I actually remember this. I got my first credit card in 1981. For those whippersnappers out there who don’t remember, 1981 sucked. Interest rates were unbelievably sky high and, unlike today, no credit card companies wanted to give credit to anyone just out of school. So despite my earning decent money for the time, I hadn’t lived in the same place for enough years or been at a job for long enough for any of the major credit card companies to give me the time of day. But I finally got a Sears credit card and immediately bought one of those mechanic ratchet sets and a small tool box to put it in. 23 years later, I still have them both.
My experience with Sears was not trouble free – several years later I charged a $5.00 part for my jigsaw over the phone without realizing that Sears didn’t have my current address. The bill fell into a black hole and didn’t get paid for a few months until I started wondering about what happened and called them up. The 60 days late that those bastards put on my $5.00 charge caused me to get rejected for several other credit card applications, even though my record was otherwise spotless. Schmucks.
My first credit card purchase was done by mistake, actually. I had gone to purchase two ariline tickets, and ended up being short of cash. I zipped them instead. Then I had to return one of the tickets and get a refund, so that would make it my third purchase??
I can’t remember that far back, but it was probably something at Montgomery Ward’s back about 1975. My first credit card was a Ward’s card, and I got it because my future mother-in-law worked there and got points for signing me up.
)
(I’d actually gotten that same book out of the library to take to work my first day, and was feeling lost without it when I returned it to the library three weeks later. That’s when I knew I needed to buy my own copy, LOL.)