Credit cards, a quick primer
(Really, really needing a pizza is not an emergency. ) You can establish your creditworthiness by making two or three small charges each month, and because you pay them off during each billing cycle, you don't accumulate debt. * Pay off your bill in full each month. As your unpaid balance climbs higher, you accumulate more interest. Eventually, you can find yourself unable to pay anything but the interest, with your debt shrinking so slowly that you'll be paying it off for years to come.