Build Your Credit, Your Life, With Secured Credit Cards

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

If you are like the millions of people suffering from bad or damaged credit and having trouble obtaining credit cards, you might want to consider a secured credit card. These are perfect for any person looking for credit repair and wanting to understand their options. What is great about secured credit cards is the fact that they can actually help you restore your credit rating and get back on the right track in your financial life.

Secured credit cards work closely with your personal checking or savings account. They work and look in much of the same way as the unsecured credit cards with just a few differences. Instead of the creditor offering you a line of credit, you are identifying your own credit line with your checking or savings account. Depending on the credit card you go with, your bank account will likely be used as collateral. What happens is if you fail to make a timely payment to the credit card, the minimum amount will be deducted directly from your bank account.

How does this help you? Well, if you have bad credit for any reason, banks and creditors are not going to be willing to extend you credit. This can make it difficult, especially in a society that is all about the plastic. However, if you get a secured credit card, you will be proving yourself worthy, provided you keep the bills paid on time and use the card responsibly. Eventually, the bank or creditors may see you have proven yourself again and begin to offer you more traditional credit cards of the unsecured fashion.

Debt is something you really do not have to worry about with these types of credit cards. Simply put, the only credit line available to you is what you have put into the special savings account. Keeping it paid will ensure that your credit line is always where it should be, at a comfortable range for your budget.

There are some disadvantages to secured credit cards as well. For instance, if you fail to make timely payments, you will have to deal with their high rates of interest and other various late fees. What happens is that they can continue to rise to where eventually you are broke and have nothing to fall back on. This is why it is ultimately important to keep that bill paid on time, every time.

However, this is the best option for those who are looking to repair their credit and build their credit. Secured credit cards are the first step to financial freedom and eventually a credit worthy life.