Contributed by Annie Bauers
If you get a credit card that is issued to people that have bad credit you may have to put money down. This is called a secured credit card and your charging limit will be the amount of money that you put down to secure the card. The reason you have to do this is because you have already established yourself as a bad or high credit risk. If you use your secured credit card wisely you won't always have to apply for a credit card for people with bad credit.
In fact you can use the card to raise your credit score and you'll be able to qualify for an unsecured credit card when you do this. If you're smart you will put down the minimum on your new credit card for people with bad credit and make charges that are very small in price. You will be able to afford the payments and you can make them all on time and as well you can pay off the balances of your purchases.
Both of these things will raise your credit score and one day in the near future you won't have to secure your credit card.