re: 18 year old son wants to start building credit. Recommendations?

This is how we did it.

We let our daughter take out a small loan using our savings account as collateral. We made her take the loan money and stick it in her savings account and each month for 6 months made her transfer the payment out of her savings account to make the payment. We did this twice and the second time we increased the loan and repeated the process.

Also we bought her a new car at 18 and put her on as a cosigner and got her 2 credit cards (Capital one and Discover with a 500 limit). Since she only used them for gas and a few other small items, she paid them in full every paycheck (usually the balance was only 50+ dollars so it was easy for her to do. She would prefer to pay with cash but understands the importance of being able to be responsible with credit.

After a year she decided to trade her car in and get a new one. She was able to get it in her own name because she had established credit and a credit score over 700.

BTW she is only 20 and will gradute college next year. All of this has paid off for her and it showed her how to be responsible. She is getting married at the end of the year and she and her finance just got approved to start building their first home.