All I can say is that I dearly hope there is some form of justice in the afterlife for this person and his innocent victims.

Pardon the digression, back to the topic at hand.

Can we admit that we were all young and dumb once? In my experience it is a rare individual who, at that age, has a reasonable understanding of fiscal literacy. I was born at the tail end of the baby boom/start of Gen X, part of the cohort of college students who were first targeted by credit card issuers in the mid-to-late 1980s, and I can remember getting my first credit card from Citibank. I carried a balance, and even took out student loans from Citibank to pay off credit card debt. That sort of thing wasn't uncommon; I knew many students who took out student loans to cover the cost of travel, for example, or other frivolous things. Height of stupidity, absolutely. I'm sure my grandparents, all of whom lived through the depression, would have thought I was dumber than a box of rocks, had they known the full scope of my stupidity. Had he been on the air at the time, they would have told me to listen to Dave Ramsey and follow his advice. But keep in mind, good judgment is a function of experience, and experience is a function of bad judgment. None of us is born with good judgment.

From my own parents, I learned more from watching their mistakes, fiscally, than I ever learned from what they taught me directly (which was very little). I am trying to break this cycle with my own kids.

Points and miles is a hobby best appreciated by folks who have a bit of seasoning. It's not for everyone. It is a pity that youth is wasted on the young...

That's kind of the situation with me (although it's hard to imagine where I'd be, if I were not disabled

Anyway when my mom and I emigrated from Russia in 1999, my mom had zero credit history, and she had to build it up, she has always paid her bills off. Anyway,
when I turned 15 I was added as an AU on her AMEX etc.. I don't know if it's just because we are immigrant,or that I am disabled,but i really never felt the urge to spend big money (probably because I understand that we were different,in that every summer we would need to save money to travel somewhere or visit family
But there you go, a little about my story to financial (what would be the best word to use) literacy...

PS you wouldn't believe how much "the fact that I have the ability to travel" (or the thought of it, in the back of my mind) has helped me through the very few times I have felt depressed in sone situations (mostly school related)

You know what was shocking to me? The girls didn't have a rapid rewards account and didn't know about earning points for the flights they have to take to road games. Passing up free points? Shocking. :eek:

Haha but like I said naturally college kids have other things on their mind.


Back on topic a bit speaking of credit cards for college kids I was in college right before the CARD act was enacted. I remember just walking to class and would on occasion see a group of people aggressively hand out flyers to passers-by. They would basically shove it in your hand as you walked by. The flyers would say things like bring your student id to Papa Johns pizza and get a free large pizza, or go to a local deli for a free sub, chips, and a drink.

Even though I was a bit more naive then, I still knew business don't ever just straight up give things away for free. There was a catch and I wouldnt even bother finding out what it is so I always threw those flyers in the trash.

Heard from other people that yep, in order to get the free food you have to sign up for a credit card. Of course the flyers didnt say that you didnt find out until you actually tried to claim your free stuff.

I still had a few years of college after the CARD act was passed and nicely enough those last few years there were no scammy flyers being forced upon people anymore. ^

The good thing is, I am not like most college kids (in more ways than one) , in that I don't like pizza (now, sushi would've been a different story;)) Still, that just shows how naive most college kids really are, i mean, most are willing to sign up for a credit card for a $5 pizza, yet they could signup for that same exact card and get a free business class flight

We live in America, the majority of people are less than intelligent. In 97, I had a relative use these crazy exotic things called "discount brokerages (TDA)" that Nations Bank (BofA) Wachovia, etc etc called snake handlers and were screwing you even though they "only charged $20 for trade commissions." "Stay with us and pay $250 per trade, it's safer." Not a single place on the planet you can't go for less than $8 to trade as of 2010. $20 today would get laughed at. As it was laughed at (for different reasons) back then in 97.

MS is a concept anyone that got a B or above in Algebra can figure out. As Ramsay points out, financial literacy is 80% habits and 20% head smarts. Most people have the mechanical ability to understand how it works. The other 80% is what most don't have. Having been taught that money doesn't grow on trees by parents is about the only concept I see as relevant. Thinking that cc's "don't require you to pay for something" means something went terribly, terribly wrong at some point.

Very true

I love listening to Dave to hear what messes people get into. I also love his comments about credit cards. I would LOVE to hear someone call in talking about MS and see if he just $%#$ his pants. :D

MS (the brokerage, not the thing in this forum) still charges $100 commissions in 2014: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/view...p?f=1&t=130035