Millennials-- are they more money-savvy than their Generation X predecessors? Maybe.
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates in mid-December, meaning we can expect credit card interest rates to creep up, but many millennials won't notice the effect of the hike.
"A survey that we conducted in September of 2014 shows 63 percent of millennials don't own credit cards," Bankrate credit analyst Mike Cetera said.
Cetera said there are a combination of reasons why the majority of millennials do not own credit cards. For one, they saw what happened to their parents during the great recession and don't want to live through it as well. Also, some millennials have other debt to pay off.
"A lot of them have pretty big amounts of student loan debt," Cetera said. "They don't want to take on any other kind of debt. So, as sort of a smart budgeting tactic, they're not even tempting themselves by having a credit card."
It may sound like a smart money move, but Cetera said it could hurt them down the road.
"When millennials in large numbers start looking for a mortgage, they're going to have problems because they won’t have much of a credit history to go by. Lenders are going to be less likely to give them money because they don't have that history built up," he said.
According to a housing forecast by Realtor.com, millennials will make up the bulk of home buyers in 2016. According to the study, "driven by increasing income, millennials will seek out homes that meet the needs of their growing families, putting the most weight on the safety of the neighborhood and the quality of the home."
