Please Don't Make My Mistakes

One of my friends has been thinking about the future; she wants to be able to buy a house one day, and was told that she needed a good credit score in order to be able to get a mortgage. She applied for several credit cards, but was declined because she currently does not have any credit history (one of those frustrating Catch-22's). I understand that she will need a loan in order to buy a house in LA (real estate is so expensive here!), but I worry she is making the wrong choices by getting into debt. Even though she says she will not use the cards (which I do believe, because she is one of the few people I know who is very frugal and financially conservative), I worry that the temptation will be too great and she will find herself in a situation similar to mine. Most Americans can't resist the pull of "free money", and that is why we are in the middle of a debt crisis. So I gave my friend Dave Ramsey's book Total Money Makeover in hopes that she will not follow my lead. The only way to make smart financial decisions is to be well-educated in the topic.