this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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They're not even subtle about it. The system directly rewards you for being in enough debt to always be paying someone interest but not enough that you might file for bankruptcy.
You don't have to be in debt, but you do need open credit lines. Having debt on them actually makes your score worse.
Her score likely went down because she closed out a credit line, i.e the open loan, so technically the "i have an open 5yr loan ive been paying on diligently" is no longer part of her score. The fact that she did pay it off is part of that score, but its weighted differently.
If she instead had 40k of credit cards she had open for 5yrs, with zero debt on them, her score would have gone up. Just having the account open, even not using them, shows a high "credit to debt usage" ratio and "a long time open loan." Both of those make up about 45% of your "credit score."
So no, you dont have to use a CC every month to keep a high credit score. If you want a high score, you want to open a credit card or 2 for their max value until you get about 30k-40k of total credit, and then don't use them at all. Not a bit. Never close them. The "long time accounts" + "high amount of debt not in use" + "never delinquent" is roughly 80% of your score. You can sail into the 700s/800s if you dont have any other credit hit.
So I should get five more credit cards and not use them?
I feel like you meant this sarcastically, but the answer is probably yes.
The trick is to not use them though, which so many seem to struggle with. If you're someone who struggles to manage debt, then getting more credit cards WILL BE DISASTEROUS.
So, sounds like a skill issue /s
You can use the cards, just don't carry a balance. If you don't use a card ever, it's likely going to get cancelled.
The easy thing you can do is set recurring bills only to a credit card and then set that card to auto pay the entire balance each month. Something like Netflix or even your electricity bill.
Put the bill on the card, and if you don't have the willpower to shove the card in the back of a drawer and never use it, cut it up. The card doesn't go inactive, you don't rack up debt or interest, and you can maintain a high credit to debt ratio.
Yep. This was a big part of my strategy when I rebuilt my credit. I have a pile of cards, several of which have a single bill associated with them. I wanted to cancel because now I have a great score and a couple of really high limit cards, but that drops my length of history.
So I'll be sitting on these low end cards forever probably. They'll pay a single bill, get paid off before it closes for the month (that's the number that gets reported to the bureaus) and every month from now until I decide I never need credit they'll report $0. Just like they have the last 5ish years.
Don't want to set here and repeat TexasDrunk, but yeah, that's largely what i do.
Though my solution for most cards is to buy a candy bar with each card towards the end of June every year (I have a handful of niblings who were all born end of June through July, so makes a good little treat for when I come to visit)