<prompt> Human: As the title says, Ive never had a credit card. I was taught from a young age the value of money, and to save my money to earn interest rather than pay it. Thus, all my purchases up till now have been with cash, including my car and university fees. Now, at 22 Im wondering if its time I get a credit card to establish a good credit history for when I eventually get a mortgage. If I get a card I intend to pay off the balance before any interest is incurred. I was hoping for some advice on what actually determines credit history and whether Im heading in the right direction with this idea. Any words of wisdom are much appreciated!  <response>: Well, I have limited credit history and am currently trying to get a mortgage, so Ill weigh in.I, like you, have always been very responsible with money. And, because I am good with money, I never got a credit card. After seeing so many people up to their eyeballs in credit card debt, including my own parents and sister, I decided that I wouldnt get one, that it wasnt worth the risk. So the only credit I had was my student loans. I figured between that and paying all of my bills on time, I should have excellent credit.However, last year my husband Is income was finally at the point where we could start making big purchases, like a car. When we applied for the car loan, they had to go around to about 10 different lenders until they finally found one that would loan to us because we had low scores and limited credit history. My husband is new to the country and didnt have credit in the US, but I was the primary borrower. Pulling credit hurts your score, so this made things even worse.Now, were trying to get a mortgage and while we can, our rates are .5-1 higher than if we had excellent combined credit above 730 or so. That doesnt sound like a lot but it adds up to a few thousand over the life of a loan. So, to get our rate down, we were instructed to get a credit card.I did a ton of research to find the card with the lowest fees, lowest interest in case we ever had to carry a balance, etc. Got denied. Turns out the only one we can get is a card that is secured you put down a deposit of 50 and get a 500 credit limit. Oh, and Im still waiting to hear back on that one.TL;DR: even though my household income is 150k, we had to apply for a credit card for people whove filed bankruptcy because our student loans and always-on-time bill payments werent enough to get us a good interest rate on a mortgage. 