Students learn about credit cards.
Teaching Objectives:
- Describe how credit cards are used to purchase today’s wants with tomorrow’s money.
- Compute the total cost of purchasing goods using credit cards at different interest rates when making minimum payments.
Standard 8: The student will describe and explain interest, credit cards, and online
commerce.
Suggested Grade Level
6th – 12th Grade
Lesson Excerpt:
Credit cards are more than plastic used to make purchases. They are a specific form of consumer credit originating in the United States during the 1920s when individual companies, such as hotel chains and oil companies, issued them to customers to make purchases at their businesses. The use of credit cards has grown tremendously since then and is now one of the primary sources of purchases for most consumers in the country.
Credit card accounts are an example of open-end consumer credit, often called revolving credit. While credit cards are a convenient way to make purchases, they also tend to promote “impulse spending” and overspending. Spending money is fun and easy; paying off credit card bills is not!
