Actually there are some misguided facts being spewed here about renting. Renting being a black hole is not exactly true. Renting and never having anything to show for it is also only half true.
Since you mentioned rent-a-center I can speak from experience as we rented quite a bit of furniture from there at some point for a client who needed a place furnished for 6 months. For some reason the company opted to rent the furniture, electronics, appliances, etc from them. Here is how rent-a-center generally works.
You rent say a $2000 tv. They don't rent plasmas or LCD TVs even (at least they did not 6 months ago). They say those are too expensive to repair if they get screwed up. Your rental payments say on a $2000 TV would be about $200 a month give or take. A good portion of this goes towards principle (which is towards the cost of the TV) and the rest goes towards interest. In the beginning you pay more towards interest than principle, which means your TV drops in value faster than it drops in the balance owed on the TV. Say you've paid $200 a month for said TV and in 2 years you're only paying towards the TV as the interest has stopped. While this isn't "credit" it is treated a lot like credit with the exception of the lack of reporting to your credit report and the lack of "GOOD" credit being necessary. In 4 years you can pay for that $2000 TV, but in the end, after that so-called loan is fully amortized (meaning you've made every scheduled payment and paid all interest) you own the TV outright. Yes, you can and will own whatever you rent from rent-a-center if you hang onto it long enough. I can tell you that for one of the items rented the company paid about $2000 more for the item than they would have had they actually bought it outright. Had they financed it on a credit card at a standard interest rate, they you could pay as much as $1000 more for the item over the life of the loan than they would have had they bought it outright.
What people like to pop off about is that renting is generally a bad idea because you pay more per month for the item than you would if you financed it. However, many people fail to mention that if you purchase a $2000 tv on credit and your rate (like many 1st time credit card holders pay) is about 18% then your average payment would be about $100. Say you choose to pay that off in 2 years, you will pay approximately $2400 for your $2000 TV. In life people who use credit to purchase things need to realize if paying $400 more for an item is worth it to them to have it now.
In no way am I opposed to credit or hell, even renting. The problem with renting is that if you don't hang onto it then like a leased car, you have nothing to show for what you paid on for a period of time (and people lease cars all of the time). You may have the occasional "remember that awesome 60" tv we had our freshman year of college?" But to hang your hat on a memory for a wide-screen project television is probably the least of your desires today. In the end, no one gives a crap what TV you had or have.
But if you choose to hang onto that tv until it's paid off, or pay more on it so it pays off faster then great. But try to sell that 60" wide projection tv that is 4 years old (and then actually older because everyone wants the lcd, plasmas etc) you may get about $500 for it because of it's size and then nothing to show for it as rent-a-center will not report to your credit report which is ultimately what you'd like so that you can being to establish your credit safely.
While renting is often reserved for people with questionable credit to say the least, it is also reserved for people who need something fast and do not have the funds to pay for it outright and do not plan to keep it...or maybe they do and the benefit of being able to get something with questionable credit and paying more for it outweighs the cost of paying double for something that you didn't have to.
But, before you see the benefit in renting ask yourself that if you and your friends could only pull together $800, when you're off to college how will you all make those monthly payments?
That's my long-winded answer. My short answer is take that $800 get a used, but nice TV (craigslist) and apply for a student visa or mastercard so that you can start to build your credit while you're in college. Tell your parents about it so that they can help you manage your credit. In life, having a good credit score will save you thousands of dollars in interest. When you buy your first house it could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Good luck.
