If you use credit cards, it's important to shop around for the best deal. The credit terms, including the interest rate, late fee, and grace period, can vary widely from one card to another.

Your creditworthiness is a measure of how good or bad a risk you might be to a potential lender like a bank or credit card issuer. Lenders may use a number of criteria to evaluate your creditworthiness, with special emphasis on your debt-to-income ratio, or DIR (D-I-R), and your payment history.

"Same as cash" offers are like interest-free loans, in that you have a specific amount of time to pay off a purchase in its entirety without incurring interest.

You may be denied credit for a variety of reasons. Having a history of late or missed payments is one possible cause, but credit may also be withheld simply because you haven't accumulated enough credit history, due to paying cash for most or all purchases.