720 ("good" - needs work)
52 yrs old in March.

A decade ago I was in the 500s.

How long you been at 821? It took 10 yrs to get there?

I’ve been 800s for a few years.

And got into the 700s a long time ago.

Negative items disappearing and just never missing a car payment or anything for a few years got me into the 700s.

Getting that utilization rate way down is what got me into the 800s.

My grandmother was drilling "DON'T FUCK UP YOUR CREDIT" into my head since I was like 13 lol. So I never played fast and loose w/my finances, and was of course also very lucky/fortunate that I was never forced to because of circumstances.

Damn. 880 is perfection. That even possible?

It's actually 785, I just checked.

I talked to my guy about refinancing and he was like..."ummm, holla at me when you pay these CCs down to 10%" lol.

So I just did that, I'll have a better idea in a couple of weeks but I'm thinking low 700s.

Crazy how fast your score can update these days vs. back in the day it took like 6 months+ before you saw all your hard work pay off via improved credit score

I was 745 back in september but I stupidly let a small credit card payment lapse. It happened. I was under covid/marriage/career stress hard and had been since the beginning of the year.

It's been a rebuilding.

i was 400 6 years ago.

i only have one CC.

that said, I own some property so things arent that dire, but they could be better.

It hasn't changed in about 3-4 years. Meanwhile, I've never been late once my whole life. And I'm using only like 1% of my available credit.


Credit Karma dings me because I only have 4 accounts, all credit cards.

But from what I understand, there's no effective difference when you get into the high score ranges (i.e. 750 is treated the same as 830)

Only the 3 Credit motherships do

up to 640, im 36. last year it was like 580. not sure if ive been over 700 since ive started using/needing it but hopefully i will be soon.

definitely have things under control now and a plan on paying off current debt. biggest help in doing so? getting paid more money. no matter how much i tried to manage my expenses before there just wasnt much left over to make an impact on my debt. last couple of years ive almost eliminated all my CC debt and expect to eliminate it completely in a couple of weeks. by end of year i will also knock out a personal loan i took out.

will basically just be left with car and student loans (which probably wont be forgiven by any plan that is passed). im hoping 5-10 years im only worrying about a mortgage.

not sure it its refinancing my house or credit usage.

25% utilization

shit is a scam

>shit is a scam

The most financially responsible you can possibly be is to have *no debt*. Yet, if you have no debt, your score *decreases*, even if you've had debt in the past w/100% on time payments and no derogatory remarks.

That's some bullshit right there. But it's obviously by design.

I went through a 5 year period no debt and it hurt my score. I had take on a credit card and make a couple of trivial purchases per a month to get my score up.

I have a credit card for the exact reason we're talking about, just so my credit score stays at a high level.

I found one with no fee that pays high % cash back on all purchases. So I use it like cash/a debit card and just pay off my entire balance every day or every other day.

That way I get the cash back on every purchase and keep my credit score high, but don't pay a dime in interest.

It's easier said than done to be that disciplined but if you force yourself or even like set yourself a damn reminder every nite or every week to pay off your whole balance, you're literally just getting free money out of it.

So as much of a predatory scam as our credit system can be, it can work in your favor if you are able to be fully committed to it.

Years of that debit/cash life have given me the discipline to only spend what I actually have. I don't have the patience to pay it off weekly so I what I do is set a reminder to manually pay it off ~5 days before they send me a statement then just autopay whatever extra balance I have on the due date. That *seems* to keep the overall credit utilization on my credit report pretty low so far.

>Years of that debit/cash life have given me the discipline to
>only spend what I actually have. I don't have the patience to
>pay it off weekly so I what I do is set a reminder to manually
>pay it off ~5 days before they send me a statement then just
>autopay whatever extra balance I have on the due date. That
>*seems* to keep the overall credit utilization on my credit
>report pretty low so far.

i pay it off weekly. i think over 4 months ive built up like $80 in cash back just with normal purchases. there were a couple weeks around xmas that i went overboard and got a bit shocked at how much i owed at the end of the week lol. still was able to pay it off within two weeks. since then its been pretty predictable.

even when the amount i owe is a bit high its all good because i have the money in the bank account since i havent been using my debit card for pretty much anything.

only thing i am worried about is what to do with these credit cards ive been paying off. seems like you want to keep them open so your available balance stays high but i dont want to use them since i dont get any cash back. im hoping they give me a warning before they close them due to inactivity.

never had a card closed for not using it. I've closed some that I didn't want to risk using and didn't worry much about the score going down. I'm good with occasionally losing a few points.

>only thing i am worried about is what to do with these credit
>cards ive been paying off. seems like you want to keep them
>open so your available balance stays high but i dont want to
>use them since i dont get any cash back. im hoping they give
>me a warning before they close them due to inactivity.

I paid off my CCs and didn't want to close them either. I've had one card warn me about inactivity after a year or so and another close the account.

Now I just spread out my various subscriptions on the cards, just so they're being utilized. I set the CC payments to autopay so that I don't forget to pay the bill. So far, none of the other cards have closed.

Closed account goes against your (and I think it's an) average account history length. If you only have one or two cards, it probably hurts more than if you have five or six old cards.

If I recall correctly, let's say you've been paying your mortgage for 12 years, that factors in the length of credit so refinancing turns that into a "new account" which will in turn shorten your credit history and possibly lower your score.




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which is why shit is a scam.

I’m getting a better rate and paid of the other one and bever missed a payment. Why am I being punished for this?

You're buying a house, which we're always told is about the most financially responsible thing you can do with your money.

But then your credit goes to shit, however temporarily, because you do exactly that.

So stupid.

It bounces for NO REASON.

My understanding that a 750 is basically the same as an 820.

Edit: It took me around 9 years to get there from a 669 after a bankruptcy. Got to 725 after 3 years.

You basically need to have NO debt at all and a spotless credit history over 5 years to get in the 800s.

I've got 820 with a mortgage - but I regularly pay my CC balances off at the end of the month. No student debt. Leased car. So it's possible, but definitely need that spotless payment history.

Literally nothing has changed - maybe time accounts have opened have reached a threshold.

I really don't understand these scores.

I keep an eye on it with CreditKarma, its always shifting up or down slightly.

So I went to freecreditreport and it said I don't have one. I've applied for credit cards and lines of credit sporadically over the years and never been approved. I figure it's student loan related.


Something tells me if I've spent this long without credit and am not really sure what I'd want it for other than to buy things I can't currently afford with debit, I probably shouldn't have it anyway?


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

evaluate your trustworthiness, responsibility, liability, etc...



"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

The shitty part about that is that you have to put down a deposit but it's a good way to establish credit.

especially if you're trying to buy a house or car. unless you have access to that kinda cash off hand.

my coworker didn’t fuck with cards at all. But now he has a wife and the crib is in her name because he didn’t have any established credit.

and on business trips he was always looking crazy because he didnt have a credit card to put on file or rent a car.

but if you plan on renting forever and never have a family I’m sure you can survive without one.

Personally, I would have at least one card for emergencies.

I play the game with them, but keep my usage down. and pay shit off asap.

now, if I can just get rid of this student loan...

I didn’t pay for enough attention to it in my 20s

just dropped 5 points for some reason. It took me about 3 years after my identity was stolen to build my credit to the 700s. I've been around 750 to 780 for the past couple years cause I usually keep around 10% utilization



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I knew I was getting old, and I knew I was roughly in median territory around here. But I guess somehow I thought I was the only one who was aging.

As to the question, 41 and 750. I have a bit of CC debt and two small loans. Just bought a new piano and built a new computer. Both of those put me back a bit.

haven't been able to get it any higher than that and barely understand how the shit works. i don't use my cc for anything other than renting a car once in a while since i only have a $300 limit anyways. no debts that i know of. no home, no college, no car. wish they taught this in high school because now i don't care anymore.

Someone with one credit card and say $7,000 of available credit, will have a lower score than someone with say $25,000 of available credit, even if their usage and on-time payments, etc. are exactly the same.

You might want to start using that card. Maybe use it for everyday expenses, gas, food, etc., but just pay it off every month to minimize interest.

It's annoying and counterintuitive, but the credit rating isn't designed to measure how frugal you are. It's designed to measure how much of a risk a bank would be taking if they gave you a loan. If you don't have enough history of using credit, then there's no way to know how risky it would be for a bank to give you a loan. So the agencies just give you an average score even if you've never missed a payment on anything.

.

A few years back my wife lost her job and we had a fair amount of credit card debt. We started juggling payments and stayed having late payments. It was doing a real number on our credit. It went down into the 400-500s after almost defaulting on a HELOC.

I was able to wrestle to where it is now over the last two years or so. Paid off the HELOC, kept payments on track, paid off some cards, paid down some balances.

About to buy a car and add an additional car note. Hopefully, that doesn't make it dip. But if we stay on track with payments and paying down balances, it should be a minor hit and we should keep going up.

52

it can be pretty frustrating.

on the car thing, I went through a local car buying service. They look for the car for you. you tell them the model, version, features, etc.

they'll can also bring the car to you or you can pick it up and their office.

and also help nail down the financing. they set me up with Georgia United CU. the CU took another .25 off my rate since I used that buying service. my rate ended up at 2.69 for a 2016 vehicle that I bought in 2018

let me know if you want me to send you that info.

I am in a great situation, though. Using the job's credit union. 1.7% rate if I opt to have it autopay, 2.7 if not (I will be autopaying).

They have a car finder service... that I used. However, they gave me many of the same cars I found using CarFax (evidently I'm in the wrong business).

>I am in a great situation, though. Using the job's credit
>union. 1.7% rate if I opt to have it autopay, 2.7 if not (I
>will be autopaying).
>
>They have a car finder service... that I used. However, they
>gave me many of the same cars I found using CarFax (evidently
>I'm in the wrong business).
>
>

Car note and I pay my credit cards down monthly.

Wife is at 760 and she is 38. I had to help her improve her score, it was low 600s when we first met.

read a response made months ago by okayplayer soulfunk about credit scores: https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13408962&mesg_id=13408962&listing_type=search#13408979


Included in his response is the fact that free scores from sites like Credit Karma are trash and aren't the true credit scores from Experian, Equifax, and Transunion. He also mentioned there are additional credit scores that auto loan and mortgage companies use when it comes time to make decisions on loans.

I have about 60,000 in available credit and I’m at a 1% utilization rate. I’ve learned how to use credit card statement dates vs. due dates to my advantage.

Way higher than on credit karma which has me at 785.

trying to cop a house to live along with having backhouse tenant(s) now : )

Didn't know that was really possible. Currently 846.

A big reason why is my mom put me on her credit card in case I ever needed it (I didn't) back in middle school so my history goes back to 91.

824
43yrs old

750+. mid 40s. i had a long standing high balance on a BoA card that took forever to pay off. had to get a secured card a few years ago and was diligent in paying it off before the statement balance. i believe this has improved my score but i hadn't checked in years prior to doing it recently so i can't say exactly what has changed

----------------------------

is it bad if i opened up a line of credit with a store and i don't really plan on using it? what would closing it without using it do to my credit?

fuck capitalism.

d

"But rest assured, in my luxurious house built on the backs of people darker than me, I am sipping fine scotch and scoffing at how stupid you are." - bshelly