Hey guys, it's sasha getting your first credit card can be incredibly daunting, so many people get constantly declined, not knowing what it is that they're doing wrong, also not knowing what it is that they should be doing right and how to actually go and get started. Credit cards have built up a really bad reputation. A lot of people say that it's really bad for you that you shouldn't have one, because you know you can go and get in debt and it can be a perpetual problem, and there is some merit to that line of thinking. They can be a really bad thing in some circumstances, for some people, but used right, a credit card can be an incredibly good thing for building your credit for improving, so many different aspects of your life from getting a mobile phone contract at a decent rate through To being able to purchase a house later on in life, there are so many different benefits for getting a credit card and using it the right way that a lot of people naturally want to go and do it.

But what is the best way for doing? Well, i'm going to break down exactly what it is that you need to do if you're in that situation, if you want to go and get your first credit card, what you need to do to improve your chances, what the best way of doing it is so Listen on, but just just before i get there a really brief disclaimer. I am not a financial advisor. I can't provide financial advice to you and if you do need financial advice, please make sure you go and seek the help of a suitably qualified professional. Well, now, that's out of the way to start with before you do anything else, the best thing to do if you're, just considering getting your first credit card, is just to go and check your eligibility without making full applications for specific credit cards, making a full application With a particular company will leave a marker on your credit file, there'll, be a marker, saying that you made a credit application and if you have too many of those markers that factor alone can be the reason why you get declined from credit cards in the future, Especially if you have too many of them, some credit card providers will actually decline you if you've made three applications or more for credit in the last three months, so if you've been making quite a few of them, the first tip here is to not make any More to go and wait it out a little bit, but what you can do is you can go and do a check for your eligibility without leaving those markets if you're going to money supermarket and totally money.

For example. These are probably the the best two for, in my personal opinion, i have no commercial affiliation with them. You can go and use any other comparison, websites that you prefer if you choose to, but you can generally get a very comprehensive coverage from using, for example, these two, especially for first-time credit cards when you put in all your details into these you'll, get a comparison. Output screen, which will show you all the different credit cards that you are eligible for, and some of them will tell you something like pre-approved or 10 out of 10 as a likelihood, and that is a great sign.

If you get one of those you are done. You are sorted, you can go and get your first credit card. It means that unless there is something really odd about you like there are some fraud markers against you on some fraud systems which they haven't yet checked. You should be able to go and get one of those credit cards.

Absolutely no problem. Remember, though, for your very first credit card, it really doesn't matter at all what credit card it is you don't need to flex, you don't need a shiny, platinum card. None of that matters you are here to improve your financial position to improve your credit, and all of the different credit cards will do pretty much exactly the same thing here, pretty much all of them report to multiple bureaus these days, so just go and get whatever Good, decent, well-known brand credit card that you can, that will accept you will accept. You is the only thing you care about at this stage, because all the other things will come down the line just make sure you choose one that doesn't have annual fees or monthly fees, because you don't want to be paying them until the point where maybe you'll Feel, like the perks might be worth it all over your first one.

I would wager that they probably aren't now. If, at this stage, you don't qualify for anything. If you get messages saying that you're not eligible or only very low chances like 2 out of 10, then you might need to go and do some work on your credit profile, and here is what i would do if i was in that situation. First, i'll go and sign up for the free credit report from each of the three credit reference agencies in the uk.

Now the thing here is: do not go and sign up on the actual website of each of those agencies. They all have these reports available and have free trials, but free trials are only for a short period, sometimes 14 days, sometimes a month that they're about and then they're going to begin charging you quite expensive fees. So don't do that because all of them have a free version that doesn't have a freemium or a free trial or anything. It is so so easy to go and do that so for experian you can use the money, saving expert credit club for equifax.

You can sign up with clearscore and for transunion you can go and use credit karma. All of these are completely free, ignore the credit score that each of these give each of these will give you a number, and that number means nothing whatsoever. In fact, the credit card companies that will be doing your assessment, don't even get that number, let alone use it for any kind of decision. So the credit score number like 900 or 780 means nothing at all, so i would just go and ignore it.

For now it's a good overall indicator of sorts, but it doesn't really mean much on its own. Now the key is go and look at the accounts that are listed on there. Look at go. Look at your personal details.

Can you see anything on there? Is the data correct? Is your address data correct? Are there any warning flags displayed? Are there any kind of things that they're saying that they don't have that? Maybe you can go and fill in if any of these things are not right, you can go and work either with the account provider. If the data within the account is not right or with the credit reference agencies to go and put them right - and it might take some time, but it's definitely worth doing if you don't already see if you can get some form of credit on top. After doing that, from anywhere that will give you some data into your credit profile, but you know don't go and just get some kind of loan or some kind of expensive high cost credit or some kind of expensive form of borrowing. Those will actually do you in many cases more harm than good, even aside from the high cost.

If you go and get paid a loan type lending, that is actually a negative marker on your profile rather than a positive one. So make sure you stay away from all of those kind of things, because it definitely won't help. If you don't already have one. A mobile phone contract is a great way as a first step because they are often relatively easy to get and if you don't have one, but you want one that might be a good place to start.

Although uh just just be very careful without you know, paying way too much for the privilege and a mobile phone contract isn't quite as useful as other forms of credit, because not all credit card companies will actually consider that credit data, not many credit card companies. Don't even buy mobile phone contract data for their decision even better. If your bank will offer you an overdraft go and take it. Overdrafts are a form of revolving credit, very similar to credit cards, and those will also begin reporting to credit bureaus.

So if your bank says that you are eligible, you can go and get it go and take that box. It doesn't matter how big it is. If it's a hundred pounds or 200 pounds, that's perfectly good enough. They will begin reporting data to the credit reference agency.

You'll kind of feel, like you'll, have a credit card and you know you'll be able to show that you are responsible that you're not perpetually in debt, and that is a really good starting point as well. If you've had the same bank account for some time, and your bank also does credit cards, that might also be a good place to check, especially if you go and log in to your account and see if you have any pre-checks done and if you're pre-qualified, for Something for one of those credit cards, because that can be easier than getting a credit card with a company that knows nothing about you, unlike the bank, who has seen your bank statements month in month out year in year out. Next, if you don't have any of those options, one thing you might consider is going and checking which bank accounts actively advertise having overdraft and say that that's one of the key features of the account and do a big marketing play around it, because the likelihood is They have probably a a current account that is quite likely to give you that overdraft facility, so you might go and choose to go and check if you're eligible for one of those go and apply and if you go and get that overdraft. That can be your first form of credit instead.

Just make sure that you use it responsibly, don't go and sit in your overdraft. Don't do any of those things, because that's actually gon na again do more harm than good. Then, after doing all of that, consider some of the other reasons why you might be getting declined, because these are also important things to fix a credit card company will typically do three different types of checks when deciding whether to lend you by giving your credit card Or not, they're the credit check, a fraud check and an affordability check, as this is your first form of credit, you probably won't have issues with fraud but make sure you go and send it to those things that i told you to sign up for before to Check in cases any weird markers now for affordability, you need to make sure that you are earning money because affordability basically says: can you afford the monthly repayments on your credit card? If you were to go and get it, and if you don't have a permanent job, if you don't have a job that pays you any kind of stable money, if you have only a small part-time job, that only pays you a very small amount of money. You may well get declined because of the affordability and uh you need to go and ensure that you actually have a job that pays you money in order to be able to qualify if you're a young person and say you're a university, and you know you don't Have a job, but you have student grants or your parents are supporting you.

Those are not real forms of income and they will not be considered as income of those companies, so at least they shouldn't be so unfortunate. You're gon na have to wait until you actually have the ability to go and get a credit card. In some cases, when you're student, your bank, your student account, will qualify you for a student credit card without you needing a full-time income or maybe without needing any income at all on a very low credit limit. That might be one of the options, but in most other cases you will have to wait until you actually have an income, because with credit it is the right thing to do to make sure that the person applying can actually go and pay the money back now, If you uh pass those two, the other thing is the credit check and credit check is split into two parts, with almost all credit providers there's a set of policy rules which is sort of yes, no questions as to whether you'll get the credit card or not, And then there's a credit score, which is more like a big calculation using lots of different variables, and then they will decide whether or not you pass on the credit score as well.

Now both the policy rules and the credit score are completely different between all the different providers. It's not like in the us. If you watch any us videos where there's one score that matters here, everyone's score will be completely different, and so you can't go and game it in any way. Other than doing all the right things with your credit profile, um and unfortunately, you probably won't be able to do very much about the score other than the things that i've already mentioned, and you know having some form of credit, not getting into debt and things like That um, but if you get an overdraft or a credit card, do not carry your balance and repay and fall every single month.

You probably should be okay on that. The policy rules, however, can be based on a few criteria that you might not have thought about, which would decline you for things that you haven't thought so, for example, matching you at the bureau is a really important thing. Um, what happens when you go and apply? Is it going to take your data and go and pull your data from the bureau to go and make their credit assessment? If they can't match you to the bureau, you will be declined just because of that alone. Without any reason, because of you know your behavior or your credit profile, so if you, for example, live in student halls or a flat with very many occupants, those can be really big negative markers, because your address will be the same as the address for many hundreds Of other people and the credit card company will be thinking.

Can we actually reach that person in the future they're likely to stay living there like some? Some of them might even have criteria, saying we're wearing lent to addresses which have hundreds of people living at exactly the same address, because it might be harder to reach you, you might become untraceable in the future. If you owe the money now all of these kind of reasons, so that's one thing to consider another is your address that you live in, might not actually match the data at the bureau. So be very careful. This happens more than people think so you might live in somewhere, which is flat 1a, and when you receive your post, you get it it's very easy.

But when you go and check with the credit reference agency, that flat is actually called the lower ground floor flat check. The way your address is written on the bureau by going back to those three things that you've signed up for, make sure exactly the format of exactly how it's written is the same, because that alone can be the reason why being declined. If you frequently change addresses your recent address, may not actually be on the system or you might raise potential fraud flags. That is the first time you're applying from a new address, or you might hit some other rule that one of these lenders has because staying at addresses for short periods of time is a risk factor.

It means that you know you don't have a stable place where you live, you might not have a stable job. You might not have the ability for the credit card company to reach you in the future. So that's a big thing. Remember the way the credit scoring and data works is really quite simple, so don't over complicate it.

If, for example, you do have a permanent address where you let's say you live with your parents, primarily all your stuff is there, you have your bedroom there. You know. That's where you live, but sometimes for short periods of time, because of whatever you might spend a few weeks in one place or a few weeks in another place, or maybe a month somewhere or whatever it is. You might choose to go and keep your main address.

Where you live for all of your financial needs, so all your statements go there, so that all your credit history is based there. So you don't have this whole history of jumping around now you have to be a bit careful. You don't want to commit fraud by pretending to live somewhere where you do not live so make sure you don't do that, but just think about it in terms of how the credit card company will be looking at it. If you have a new address every three months, that might be an issue in terms of verifying where you live, and it might also be an issue with matching you at the bureau.

Now one really important thing with young people is, you shouldn't, go and make too many applications. I already mentioned this, but typically credit card providers would be looking at the number of applications you made in the last three months or some in some cases. In the last six months and those numbers going to be low, like some of the more loose providers will accept you if you've had up to four or maybe even five applications, some of them will have a much more straining criteria so literally having three or four Applications for credit in the last four to six months can be the reason why you're being declined by many people. So if you just step back and stop applying for things, just take a breather and just give it a bit of time suddenly might be qualifying just because of that reason alone.

Adverse credit history, something that most people who are playing for their first credit card. Probably don't have, but if you do, if you have previous defaults, if you have any kind of charge off in the past any kind of debt that has gone bad, a county court judgment, all of these things will be extremely serious and play against you and they Might be the reason why you don't qualify for credit this marker any of those kind of markers bankruptcy, etc, will stay on your report for six years and most credit card companies will not lend to you if you have any of those markers in the last 18 To 24 months - and the majority probably will want at least three years gap from when that market happened until they might consider you, so if you have any of those markers, unfortunately, the best thing you can do is wait and make sure that in the meantime, everything On your credit report is as good as it can be now. One last thing to make things really obvious: you cannot be currently behind on any of your debt, repayments or uh. You know in a recent past, you can't be behind any paper payment.

So if you missed a payment, for example, you probably won't qualify for lending immediately after doing that, and if you missed a payment in the last three to six months in some cases in the last 12 months on something, even if you've since brought your account back Up to speed, that might also be a reason why you're not qualifying and again the only thing you can do really is wait now, go back after doing all of these things and make sure that everything's good go back and check your credit profiles with those three Different agencies regularly to make sure that everything is doing what it should be to make sure that the data's going in and saying that everything is green and up to date. Make sure that you don't use those same websites that you're using for checking your credit for checking eligibility for products, because they will show you products, but they typically have a very small range of products and they are commercially incentivized in a different way to only sell. Those so i'll go personally back to the big comparison, websites and recheck them every three months, for example, just to see what my progress is and whether suddenly i'm become eligible for something where previously i wasn't once you do, get your first credit card. Make sure you don't do anything that you don't want to do with it make sure you just put regular purchases on it.

Set up your debit pays in full every single month. I have a whole separate video. I'm going to put the link up here in the description below where i talk exactly what you need to do with your first credit card, to build your credit, so make sure you go and check it out if you're interested and if you do all of these Things and you make sure that you go and get that first credit card when you do become eligible, your credit will improve and you will be eligible for more credit cards with good perks and generally all the other benefits of having good credit over your life. So go ahead and make the most of it.

Thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate anyone against the end of one of my videos and, as always i'll see you guys later.