The Best Secured Credit Cards

For many people, trying to choose the best secured credit card can be challenging.  Unlike an unsecured card whereby the issuing company provides a credit limit from which purchases are deducted, a secured credit card is one where the cardholder loads the card with money through a manual or automatic deposit.  While anyone can choose a secured credit card, these cards are typically used by individuals with bad credit.

For many people, trying to choose the best secured credit card can be challenging.  Unlike an unsecured card whereby the issuing company provides a credit limit from which purchases are deducted, a secured credit card is one where the cardholder loads the card with money through a manual or automatic deposit.  While anyone can choose a secured credit card, these cards are typically used by individuals with bad credit.

Credit card shopping in general is exhausting since there are now so many different options and so many different terms associated with each.  While in a perfect world people would make purchases only with cash, the truth is that we live in a world of credit.  However, for some people, past use has had a serious impact on credit, making it impossible to get anything but a secured card.  The key is to find the best secured credit card that will help rebuild credit but also make spending more convenient.

The truth is that the only real option a person with bad credit has is to find the best credit card.  Otherwise, they will have to do without and while that would be nice, many places only take credit.  For instance, when trying to book a rental car, unless the individual has a MasterCard or Visa credit card, the transaction would be impossible.  What people need to remember is that when using a card for this purpose, the rental car company has no clue the card is secured.  All they want to know is that the person has a legitimate credit card just in case something happened to the car.

One of the first steps in choosing the best credit card is for people to understand every associated fee.  Since fees and interest rates vary significantly from one card to another, it is worth the time and effort to know what these are for every card being considered.  The more standard types of fees found on any card, even the best secured credit card would include annual fee, application fee, processing fee, late fee, over and limit fee.  Since these can have such a broad range, the goal is to choose a reputable card that has the lowest fees offered.

Another very important factor when choosing the best secured credit card is the required deposit.  Since money is loaded or deposited into the card’s account and is then used as the credit line, it is important to know the maximum that could be deposited.  For instance, if the person is looking for the best secured credit card for travel relating to work, it would be important to have a card that allows a significant deposit but if the card would only be used for an occasional purchase or for emergencies, the deposit amount could be less.

Finally, the individual wanting the best secured credit card also needs to identify the various qualifying criteria.  Each issuing company and type of card will have unique requirements so rather than apply for several cards only to be turned down because of too many restrictions would result in the person not getting a card but also hurting his or her credit score.  Therefore, the goal is to find the best secured credit card that could actually be approved and then to pay attention to all the details of that card.