Hiding Credit Card Problems From Your Parents is a Big Deal

One of the first things that you are probably going to want to do when you become an adult and start to head off to college is to get your hands on a student credit card. Even people who aren’t planning to go to college may find it fairly easy to get their first credit card without the help of a parent. This is great in the sense that it allows you to identify yourself as an adult and to start establishing your independence. However, it can pose problems if you aren’t being up front with your parents about your use of credit cards.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of people will make mistakes with their first credit card. This often leads to problems that can feel overwhelming to deal with (such as an inability to make even the minimum payment on the card). A lot of these problems can be avoided if you’re just open and honest with your parents about your credit card use and any problems that you run into with the use of credit cards. And you will also find that you probably will feel better about the situation if you are honest about it.

You may be saying that hiding credit card problems from your parents doesn’t really seem like that big of a deal. After all, you aren’t asking them to pay for the debt problems that you’re racking up. And you know that they are going to stress out about the problems that you are having if you do tell them about the issues so why bother them with your financial troubles, right? Wrong. Although it is difficult to be open with your parents about this type of problem, it’s really a big deal if you are dishonest with them.

Being dishonest about your financial situation is highly likely to cause you stress. Sure, the debt itself is going to be causing you stress. But you certainly don’t need to exacerbate it by trying to hide the financial problems that you find yourself dealing with. Additionally, the lying that you will have to do to cover up the fact that you are having financial problems is going to put a strain on the relationship that you have with your parents. They may not know what you’re lying about but they’ll have a clue that something is wrong.

Worst of all, being dishonest with your parents about your use of credit cards is likely to lead to problems with self-esteem that can be more damaging than you may think. Most students are aware of the fact that there are risks involved when getting student credit cards. They feel bad about themselves that they didn’t pay attention to the warnings and that they managed to get themselves into the kind of trouble that they thought they could avoid. Hiding the problem just makes them feel worse about themselves. Plus it tends to make the actual financial problems worse because you just end up digging a deeper and deeper hole for yourself. Suck it up and let your parents know what’s up. It won’t be easy but it will be the right thing to do.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 8:19 am and is filed under Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.