<prompt> Human: Im a 25 year old living in a big city in ok financial shape - good credit 770ish, 20k in savings, 95k salary with rock-solid benefits. I have 12k in debt will pay off by October and my expenses are a little high because the COL here is so insane - 1200 for rentutils, 90 on transit, 250 to cover my familys phone plan and 400 fooddrinks - but still manageable.My question is that my parents are pushing me to get a credit card in order to build my credit. Before I lucked my way into my first Big Girl Job a few months back, I did have a credit card that they paid as an emergency fallback, but as soon as I finally found a job I immediately got rid of it just in case it tempted me to spend. Now I pay debit card or cash for everything, or paypal for anything online.My question is - are there honestly clear advantages to using a credit card vs just sticking with debit cash? I have heard for example debit cards are much less safe wrt fraud; I also very much want to save up to buy a condo in the future, so my credit history needs to grow strong. Psychologically though, I really fear I can loose with the card especially when one night on the town here, a birthday with karaoke etc can easily run up 100 ...even a salad lunch easily tops 15 in my work area. Yea I do use debit 80 of the time and thats all too easy to wave around, but I have Mint and Personal Capital for alerts and I check my bank account online most days.Basically, I want to be financially careful ... but am I being too cautious going this route? Looking at this thread on CCs maybe the Sallie Mae card would be a good idea?  <response>: Fraud protection is a big one. Credit cards have much better fraud protection than a debit card or PayPal. 