Yea I had done some online research and found this out AFTER we cancelled all our credit cards that we had open.. We should have kept our Sears Mastercard open, as there have been a couple times that we could have used it since we closed it. I'm still confused on the secured loan.. if you're giving $300 to get it, why would you have to make payments on it every month? Is it like a charge card that uses up an available pre-paid balance? or is that the fee you pay to get the card? if you just use the $300 you paid to get the card, then wouldn't you only have to pay the interest every month? i'm sorry that i'm still confused -- my brain is swirling with a lot of things..

This is my understanding of the secured card: You are basically opening a savings account with the amount you are securing. That money is not used to pay the card unless you suddenly disappear and the bank cannot reach you in order to get you to pay the balance on the card. You are given a bill every month and you pay the bill every month just like on a regular credit card. Hopefully you pay the bill in full every month so that you are not paying interest. After you do that for a while and show you are creditworthy, you should have no problem getting just a regular credit card somewhere else.

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Better to give your kids the values you have
than the valuables you can't afford.

I see, so the amount you use to open the secured card is your maximum amount you can charge on that card... in case there is a problem the money is available to cover whatever you charged.. is that right?