Submitted by RealPrinceJay t3_10qchf8 in personalfinance

I will be blunt, I come from a fortunate family background. My parents have a good amount of money, and are very interested in me building good strong credit now as a young adult. I wouldn't say they're the top 1%, but close to it in terms of income with a lot saved in the bank(my father is old).

I'm going back to graduate school, so getting a job and steady income is possible but not really something I'm thinking about right now. When I read about getting my first credit card with no credit history, I feel like some of the information about "safe" cards and not having a source of income doesn't really apply to my situation.

In order to build a good credit score and get good cards, my parents would financially support me as needed. My daily expenses also aren't that high anyway, so I really never have any fear of not being able to pay for what I'm spending money on using debit only.

My main expenditures at this point are weekly groceries(~$60), the occasional restaurant, and travel(planes and trains). As for entertainment, I go to the movie theater frequently, but that's really it. I don't own a car, I walk or use transit everywhere I go with the rare uber in the mix.

Card recommendations are appreciated, but I'm more so looking for how I should approach researching what card(s) to get

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ScrewWorkn t1_j6p80k8 wrote

Have your parents add you as an authorized user to one of their cards. That is the fastest way to build up your credit.

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RealPrinceJay OP t1_j6pc03t wrote

What are the risks associated with becoming an authorized user on my father's AmEx Platinum for example?

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ahj3939 t1_j6pf62z wrote

Amex reports as new account. Also Amex Platinum does not have a credit limit therefore most scores will ignore it and since you don't have any other credit card they won't calculate "credit utilization" which makes up 35% of your scores.

Have them add you to non-Amex card. And if they use Amex for everything and have some old Sears card from 1998 that's siting with $0 balance it's a perfect account to add you to.

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ahj3939 t1_j6pez8k wrote

Have them add you to two older non-Amex cards that have a high limit and report a low balance.

Give it about 30-45 days to show up on your credit report.

In the meantime I recommend you go on www.annualcreditreport.com and pull all 3 reports. They'll probably ask you to mail in with 3 forms of ID. That's fine, do it. It'll help in the next step so when you apply for Discover card they can verify your name, SSN, etc with Equifax, etc.

Then I recommend you start with unsecured Discover card.

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