I need an adult in Public Consumption

Y’all, I need to get a credit card but I don’t even know where to start. Which one is… Good? For just… Charging and immediately paying off, for the purpose of upping my credit score and earning rewards? I did a couple Googles but it’s so fucking hard to find legitimate information amongst all the covert advertisements. Plus I don’t… Understand all the financial terminology and I know myself well enough to know it will take a massive effort to learn it, became it’s extremely fucking boring and frustrating and stressful to me. So I’m hoping y’all have a better baseline knowledge than myself, what with many of you being adult humans who own property and vehicles and keep children fed etc.

I’m in the US, also. I assume that matters. Haha. I don’t fucking know.

A little context: I had a credit card in my early twenties, but I misused it. I also had a $7k loan, which I got to afford moving across town/away from someone I thought might do a murder on me, and then I ALSO misused THAT. So my credit score was like, never TERRIBLE but it wasn’t good.

I’ve since paid off all my debt (which at its peak was about $10k) and comfortably live within my means. My credit score has inched its way back to “good” (it’s in the low 700s and hasn’t dipped into the 600s in about a year) but has plateaued due to my not having/using credit cards. Because Capitalist Logic!

I recently had my debit card number stolen so I had to cancel it, and it took 6 days to get my replacement card. All my autopay is hooked up to that one goddamn card, so I had no way of paying my bills ‘n’ subscriptions, except for the few that would allow me to add a bank account. And this had to happen at the beginning of the month, of fucking course! IT WAS STRESSFUL AF AND I REALIZED I SHOULD PROBABLY HAVE A BACKUP FORM OF PAYMENT BECAUSE I LOSE STUFF ALL THE TIME AND IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE MY DEBIT CARD DISAPPEARS INTO THE ETHER AGAIN.

I also wanna get my credit score to EXCELLENT, in case I ever need to buy a car or real estate or something. It’s just a good idea to care about credit, I’ve been told.

SO THAT’S THE CONTEXT. I would use the card for:

• Recurring payments, which I would immediately pay off (just to up my score)
• Plane tickets? Since they all seem to have some sort of awards program for that (and would immediately pay that off as well).
• extremely bad emergencies that manage to burn through all my savings? So, extraordinary medical issues requiring surgeries, I spose. I’m insured and all, but America.

(Sidenote: Someone remind me to get pet insurance fuck, rhizome’s recent cat health problems made me realize insurance is probably a good idea, especially with Panini’s deep desire to consume earplugs, which apparently can get lodged in a cat’s intestines and require surgery to remove. I’M VERY CAREFUL WITH MY EARPLUGS NOW BUT SHE’S SNEAKY.)

I no longer have any fear of living beyond my means and telling myself I’ll worry about it later. I’ve been through that ringer, I’ve learned my lesson.

Also I make a comfortable living wage now, and in the last 2.5 years that has been the case, my spending has NOT scaled up to my income. It’s gone up some, but seems to have plateaued without much effort, so I’m still consistently socking away savings.

So basically, I CAN own a credit card now without worrying about my impulse control making a mess of it. But uh. Whaaaaat the fuck do I doooooo nowwwwww

THANK YOU I LOVE YOU ALL GOODBYE