I was not surprised to learn that the fact a quarter of 19-year-olds have a credit card is making people nervous.
According to a study by Finder.com.au, 16.6 per cent of people get their first credit card at 18 years of age and a further 6.3 per cent get theirs at 19.
This is something Canstar spokeswoman Justine Davies told news.com.au presents a “danger” to students of getting “trapped in a debt spiral”.
Why would she be so worried about teenagers falling into a spiral of debt?
Well, I think I can answer that. I was not taught about credit cards at school — nor mortgages or tax returns or anything, really, about the many financial decisions I would have to navigate as I entered adulthood.
Sure, many of us have sat through some form of "business maths", where we were taught how compound interest worked and that you can't figure out the cost of an item sans-GST by just subtracting 10 per cent.
Top Comments
Common sense 101....
School didn't teach me how to put together a kit kitchen, lay pavers, build a retaining wall or cook Red Thai curry. However, it gave me the skills to work out to do this by myself. Stop waiting to be spoon fed information and generalise the skills you are taught and apply them to the rest of your life. If you were taught abou how to work out compound interest, as the author suggests, then apply this knowledge to how credit cards or a mortgage works. If you were taught to read and follow instructions apply then you can actually apply this in many contexts such as doing your tax return. You can even combine skills of reading with computing skills and use the Internet to look it up!!