this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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Mine is 667. I have never used credit cards, and I don't have any debt. My partner, whose FICO score is 780, currently has about twice their annual salary in debt.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

It’s pretty good.

Your credit rating isn’t really about not carrying debts, it’s about showing you can pay off debt you incur, and you utilize credit in ways that lenders can generally exploit to make money off you.

The second one is a little counter-intuitive, but I’ve been dinged on my credit score over the years for both not utilizing enough of my available credit and not having open loans after paying off my last car (before buying a house).

If you’d like to build your credit, my suggestion is to get a card that offers cash back from one of the major card companies, and put your static expenses on that card. (Utilities, streaming services, car payment, rent(?) - whatever you pay every month.)
Don’t use it for anything else unless you already have cash earmarked for that purchase. Pay it down to 0 every month. That way you don’t get sucked into paying interest, and you’re building credit while accruing rewards for stuff you were going to spend cash on anyway.

I just had to replace my garage roof. It sucked. It cost about $4600. I had the money already saved up, though, because I knew this expense was coming. I had planned to write a check to cover it, but they sent me a digital invoice. Many cards offer cash back, but usually it’s 1%. I noticed their payment site had an Apple Pay logo, and I have an Apple Card, which offers 2% on sites that use Apple Pay. (I am certain other cards have just as good of rewards, but that’s the card I have.)
So I paid with the card, and then paid the card off the day the transaction cleared. I received $92 cash back and no interest charge.
It isn’t much compared to the cost of the roof, but for 30 seconds extra of my time, ‘saving’ almost $100 on the roof isn’t bad. And the credit reporting agencies see I can take a $4600 hit like a champ (they don’t need to know how long I was saving up).