Is there a trick? Do I pay it all off in one month? Extend it over 50 years?! Do I bribe the guy I send it to? Can I fake it? Tell me, I’m curious.
I think we’ve had threads on this in the past.
Try searching for “FICO” on the board’s search engine and you may get some goldmines.
Borrowing is like thermonuclear war: the only way to win is to not borrow.
And that is counter-productive to the entire concept of obtaining a good credit score.
Sure, but I’ll submit that my remark was a life observation, not a suggestion on getting a good credit score.
Not really. Without borrowing, you probably couldn’t buy a house or a decent car or go to college.
It’s only a problem is if you can’t manage what you owe. To get a good credit score, you try to pay down all your debts, don’t skip payments, pay on time (being late once or twice isn’t a problem, but a pattern of lateness is), avoid unnecessary debts and credit cards, and be aware of your spending. If you have a low score already, stop charging and pay as much as you can into your charge cards (never pay just the minimum. The best is to pay the entire bill, but as a minimum pay at least three times what they list as the minimum payment).
Not true, at least in my experience. My dad has never been late on a bill in his 77 years, and hasn’t borrowed in a long time. When he needed to buy a car, his rating came up rather lame because he had no current credit rating. You need to use your good credit to maintain a good credit rating.
We pay all our credit cards in full each month. We try to borrow on “12 months no interest” plans and always pay them off before the end date. We’ve only been late on our mortgage once in 18 years, and that was a technical difficulty (that I had removed from our record). We’re on time with all our utility bills…all the time. We both have excellent credit ratings (and I brought mine back from life support!).