Chase Strategy: https://www.referyourchasecard.com/18o/662GB5F8TI Chase Freedom Unlimited - 20k points for $500 spent in 3 months: This credit card will act as your daily spender and you will earn 5% on travel booked through Chase Travel, 3% on dining and drugstores, and 1.5% on everything else. Chase Freedom Flex - 20k points for spending $500 in 3 months: This credit card will be your special category spenders. Every quarter the Chase Freedom Flex gets 5% on specific categories. For Q1 of 2024, these categories are Grocery Stores(excluding Target and Walmart), Fitness Clubs & Gym Memberships, and Self Care & Spa Services. The downside to this is you only are able to earn 5% on $1500 in spend in these categories per quarter. This strategy is what I used when I got started and is a good start because with Chase they have a hidden rule of 5/24. What this means is if you have gotten 5 personal credit cards in the past 24 months then they will automatically decline you. It's funny because when I went to the Chase branch to get a credit card, I asked the representative and they told me that they aren't allowed to say whether that is true or not. This allows you to start building points in the Chase ecosystem early and gives you the chance to get more Chase cards to earn more points earlier on in your journey. For the points that you do earn, I would advise you to hold off till you can use them for travel once you get the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Once you can transfer your points the value of your points are equal to at least $0.016 and can be worth upwards of $0.10 or more. As opposed to if you were to exchange these points for cash back you will only get $0.01 redemption. That is an instant 60% increase in the value of your points(not a lot of investments you'll get that return in) But if you do need the money you can exchange the points for cash back. If you have any questions post them below!

1. Only spend what you have in your bank account and even then don't go crazy. I've met tons of people that are older than I am that when they first got their credit card they thought they had $6000 of their own money to spend. I'm sure most of you know that this is completely wrong. Another thing to note is with these sign-up bonus offers on certain credit cards don't go out of your way to spend more than you usually do to reach them. This isn't Boy math or girl math. We're here to teach responsible spending so that you can work and use your money on what really matters. I have also come to know that there are some people who just aren't credit card people because they aren't able to control their spending. I would recommend that you don't opt into the credit card game until you are able to responsibly spend your money and become financially literate. 2. NEVER Carry a balance(If you have no other choice there are some ways to help this) 3. If you can don't cancel any credit cards that you have gotten(even the ones with annual fees) Always look for the ability to downgrade cards to a no annual fee one. An example of this is the Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95 AF) can be downgraded to a chase freedom unlimited ($0 AF). The reason for this is so that you keep your credit age and history. Once you cancel a credit card it gets rid of the entire history you have had with that card. I'm probably missing a couple things just off the top of my head. Write down below what I'm missing.

FIRST OFF if you aren't 18 yet don't click away. I technically got started in the credit card game when I was 15 years old (Attached is proof of me counting the days till I turned 18 to start credit). But the way I started and the best way I recommend to get started is if you have a family member or close person that has a good credit score already like 750+. Ask them to be put as an authorized user on a card that they'll never get rid of(ideally one without an annual fee). This way their credit history in a sense adds to your credit history where once I turned 18 I already had a ~740 credit score. Now you can either cut up the card so that you don't use it or what I did was just when my family had me buy groceries I would put it on that card. If you aren't close with someone with a good credit score get a charge card. These are basically debit cards where you just pay $100 and you just use that $100 as your credit limit. But these are the easiest cards to get that count towards your credit score to get started. There's no real quick way to improve your credit score it takes time. Main thing is learn the good habits of spending and ways to keep your credit score up