I got my first credit card when I was 21 and quite frankly went a bit overboard in using it. I was about to graduate from college and suddenly everything that I earlier would have liked to buy, became necessities and I kept on buying them with my credit card, to be paid off once I started my job after graduation. My initial plan was to pay off as much as I could, so I could keep up with what I was spending and not build up my debt too much, but it becomes really hard to follow after a while. Now, I use credit cards simply as a way of making a payment and send in a check immediately, so that I am not even charged any interest on it. One has to be smart about using credit cards and one has to know what one is really getting them for.