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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Cash teaches them better. Responsiblity, spending habits, etc. [/quote]

Not really.

We use a mix of apple pay, cash and prepaid credit card.  When he gets his license we'll get a separate visa where we can have a low credit limit.[/quote]

Yes really. Statistical fact. Banks/Gov love you using plastic for various nefarious reasons. [/quote]

I don’t disagree that people are more disciplined with cash, but the reality is that kids will mostly be using cards or digital payments as they get older. They need to learn how to be responsible with those. Learning how to be responsible with cash doesn’t equal learning how to be responsible with cash or digital payments. [/quote]

+1 to this. It’s kind of like riding a bike vs driving — there is some overlap in terms of things like road rules and dealing with traffic, but even the best biker isn’t automatically prepared to drive a car. Almost everyone will have a credit card someday, and being responsible with cash won’t necessarily prepare someone for the extra temptations.

I figure better for a kid to get practice with using a card responsibly now, when we’re looking over her shoulder and covering payments, as opposed to later when she’s all on her own. It also helps to build their credit history.

When I was in college, I had a card in my name that my mother paid. Anything that she was willing to buy for me, she’d say “go ahead and put it on the card.” It was an easy way to manage things and, even though I wasn’t making my own decisions on use, it still felt like I knew what I was doing once I was off on my own.

(That was long enough ago that my own non-parent purchases were by check. But that meant keeping track of my checking account, so like with cash  that’s a whole different thing.)

FWIW, our family just went through the process of researching authorized user cards for teens. We found out that most cards will let you do it, though some (like my Citi card) charge a fee to do it. With authorized user cards you’re allowing them access to your own credit and promising to pay off their charges, so you have to trust your kid! We decided that authorized user on a parent’s Capital One credit card was the best choice for our family. [/quote]

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