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Quoted: Quoted: Everything is paid off and you pay the cards off every month. Not enough credit/loan utilization? Bingo. OP on that topic https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/what-is-the-best-percentile-for-credit-utilization/ A lower credit utilization ratio is better for your credit scores, but a little utilization is better than none at all. As a result, the best revolving credit utilization ratio may be 1%. However, you don't need a 1% utilization ratio to have an exceptional credit score. Keeping your utilization in the low single digits could be good enough |
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How much of your buying power is being used is huge on your score. It doesn't matter if you make 30k or 300k a year. If you have 20k in buying power on revolving credit, and Your using over 50% or close to 50%, your score will be lower. The more you use, the lower score. It probably went down because you used more (like buying Christmas presents) of your revolving credit.
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Quoted: To get a really high score you need to borrow lots of money and pay it down. When your mortgage is almost paid off, get an equity loan. When your car is paid for, get a loan for another. HVAC goes out, they finance at very good rates. High credit scores are reserved for those that have proven they can handle credit, not those that don’t use it or need it. View Quote Odd then, my house and cars are paid off. I carry little or no monthly debt on my cards. My score is 833 |
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Quoted: Your score isn't used by financing companies like you think it is. It's actually a measure of how much $$$ they can drain from you. Your history shows them that you don't like to keep much debt, so this means they can't extract as much $$$ from you View Quote It's also an incentive to you to keep churning out the debt. Just another pyramid scheme. Wait! those are illegal. Never mind. |
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Quoted: ![]() its a measure of how likely you are to pay to them back. meaning what risk you are that you don't pay at all. nothing more or less View Quote Nope. If that were true, having no debt and a history of paying lots of loans off early would give you a perfect score, but it doesn't. When I paid my mortgage off, my score dropped like a rock. Why? Because my length of credit history on open accounts dropped. That doesn't mean I am more of a risk, just that creditors make less money in interest off of me. |
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Quoted: Then why is mine always around 815-830? I am 100% debt free, utilize about 3-4% of my credit, pay off every month, paid off mortgage, no auto loans since 2003, no loans. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: FICO score is more about how well creditors can make money off you than how well you manage money. They aren't making money off you when everything is paid off. I am 100% debt free, utilize about 3-4% of my credit, pay off every month, paid off mortgage, no auto loans since 2003, no loans. Probably a FACO. |
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Quoted: Odd then, my house and cars are paid off. I carry little or no monthly debt on my cards. My score is 833 View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: To get a really high score you need to borrow lots of money and pay it down. When your mortgage is almost paid off, get an equity loan. When your car is paid for, get a loan for another. HVAC goes out, they finance at very good rates. High credit scores are reserved for those that have proven they can handle credit, not those that don’t use it or need it. Odd then, my house and cars are paid off. I carry little or no monthly debt on my cards. My score is 833 Same, and my score is well over 800 as well. None of that is accurate. |
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Quoted: Why do you care about your credit score?? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Does increasing the available credit limit on a card(s) help or hurt a score? Why do you care about your credit score?? Because self reliant people in control of their destiny utilize all available tools and keep them in top condition? |
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Quoted: Then why is mine always around 815-830? I am 100% debt free, utilize about 3-4% of my credit, pay off every month, paid off mortgage, no auto loans since 2003, no loans. View Quote They like you to have a mortgage or vehicle loan in addition to credit card utilization in order to obtain the highest credit score. |
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Quoted: Because self reliant people in control of their destiny utilize all available tools and keep them in top condition? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Does increasing the available credit limit on a card(s) help or hurt a score? Why do you care about your credit score?? Because self reliant people in control of their destiny utilize all available tools and keep them in top condition? You really only need your score to "good enough" such that you will have little trouble getting a loan at a competitive rate if you need one, won't need to put deposits down on things like utilities or whatever, won't have trouble renting a place (if you're a renter), won't pay more than you need to for things like auto insurance, won't be denied a job because of your shit credit, etc. You don't need a ridiculously high credit score to achieve all of that. The OPs credit score is just fine. If the ONLY thing standing between him and a loan at non-loan sharking interest rates is that score, then it's probably the lender subtly telling him "What you're trying to do is financially retarded, and I wouldn't do that shit if I were you". |
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OP, what app are you using to check your score?
CreditKarma, and anything that uses VantageScore 3.0, always seems to be a fair amount off from anything that any actual lending agencies use. |
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Quoted: Then why is mine always around 815-830? I am 100% debt free, utilize about 3-4% of my credit, pay off every month, paid off mortgage, no auto loans since 2003, no loans. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: FICO score is more about how well creditors can make money off you than how well you manage money. They aren't making money off you when everything is paid off. I am 100% debt free, utilize about 3-4% of my credit, pay off every month, paid off mortgage, no auto loans since 2003, no loans. same for me. I use CC exclusively all month long and pay off every month. when the CC companies report my credit there is a sizeable balances on them. so it appears to them that I am a debt slave but i never pay interest on it as its paid off. I have 5 open accounts that are all very old. so it appears based just on my credit history that they can make $ from me. |
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Quoted: same for me. I use CC exclusively all month long and pay off every month. when the CC companies report my credit there is a sizeable balances on them. so it appears to them that I am a debt slave but i never pay interest on it as its paid off. I have 5 open accounts that are all very old. so it appears based just on my credit history that they can make $ from me. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: FICO score is more about how well creditors can make money off you than how well you manage money. They aren't making money off you when everything is paid off. I am 100% debt free, utilize about 3-4% of my credit, pay off every month, paid off mortgage, no auto loans since 2003, no loans. same for me. I use CC exclusively all month long and pay off every month. when the CC companies report my credit there is a sizeable balances on them. so it appears to them that I am a debt slave but i never pay interest on it as its paid off. I have 5 open accounts that are all very old. so it appears based just on my credit history that they can make $ from me. Some cards have a twice monthly balance auto pay option. Look into it. |
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Mine took nose dive after I paid of my mortgage and auto loan,I recently got an Amazon card just to maintain some type of credit.
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My wife and I are extremely comfortable with our finances, 63/62 years old, no dept, no notes, no house payment, pay in cash and I dont even care about my FICO
I have Lifelock and they send me an update every three months and it too is ticking down for no apparent reason other than, we dont use credit and no one is making money off of us. Screw FICO, it is a scam |
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Your not using any credit and you wonder why your score is dropping?
You need some teenage conventional wisdom, finance a car and get some credit cards (with balances) to bolster your credit score! Winning! ![]() |
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Quoted: To get a really high score you need to borrow lots of money and pay it down. When your mortgage is almost paid off, get an equity loan. When your car is paid for, get a loan for another. HVAC goes out, they finance at very good rates. High credit scores are reserved for those that have proven they can handle credit, not those that don’t use it or need it. View Quote This is false. None of that is necessary. |
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Nothing validates the movie Idiocracy more than an arfcom discussion on how credit scores work.
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Quoted: 51 y/o, house is paid off, cars are paid off, CC's are paid in full every month. Four weeks ago my score was at 752, today it drops to 744. I am almost out of the Very Good range. What is this nonsense? How do I not look like a great credit risk when it comes to finances? I've not had any hard credit inquiries for financing View Quote It doesn't sound like you need credit. So why do you care what your FICO score is? The longer you go without utilizing debt the less certain the credit bureaus can be about your credit worthiness. It makes sense. |
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Credit scores can be a factor in other things besides getting loans or credit cards.
Insurance companies look at them also and it can affect rates. |
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Quoted: I don't get these threads. For myself, I make good money, pay my bills on time. Bankers are always trying loan me money, they even take me out to lunch and try to get me to borrow money. I haven't cared what my credit score is since I was in my early 20's. Don't know, don't care View Quote Lunch? I didn’t get lunch! I went in to the branch to order checks, I normally buy them online but my bank was bought out and before I ordered anything I wanted to make sure there would be no routing number changes to factor. Anyhow I am in the office and the gent goes through my stuff after putting in an order for the checks, and doubling the order for free to make the cost the same as online. Cool. Looks at my credit card there and tells me they have another CC product that has three times the cash back at a 2% higher card rate, which is moot because mine is auto paid every month. I haven’t paid CC interest in at least 18 years. Only hiccup the new card was supposed to be $2k limit. For some reason the computer was putting my purchases into pending. When I called about the card not going through the lady tells me I don’t have room as I am nearly at the $1000 limit. WTF. I had a higher limit in 1988 from the cc app on the wall in the college cafeteria. The last time someone mentioned my FICO score it was a car dealership management trying to tell me why they were happy to get me a 5+% car loan rate. I did LOL in his ear, I had already negotiated a price on the truck and his condition was that he gets the financing. I said fine as long as it was comparable to the credit union. This went on for over a week of him coming down a half a point or so at the time. Finally I told him just refund my deposit we’re done, a 790 credit score is not an impairment to the best loan rates. Sure enough the next week and last week of the month he comes back with great news we got that rate you wanted. Ok, I bought it. Then the finance gal dropped it two tenths lower than he quoted. Whoops, they lost the touch of gravy he was holding back. FICO didn’t even get mentioned when I did my home loan pre approvals. |
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Unless you're about to make a major purchase using credit, just stop paying so much attention to your score and go about your life
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Quoted: Your score isn't used by financing companies like you think it is. It's actually a measure of how much $$$ they can drain from you. Your history shows them that you don't like to keep much debt, so this means they can't extract as much $$$ from you View Quote This is how I always joked it off. “Holy fuck.. he paid it off and didn’t go bankrupt...... increase his credit limit” ![]() |
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It's a game in which the rules are hidden from the players and changed at the houses whim.
My question? Why do you even care? |
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Quoted: Odd then, my house and cars are paid off. I carry little or no monthly debt on my cards. My score is 833 View Quote My house and car are not paid off, although I have plenty of equity in both. No CC debt. Made my car payment an hour ago and checked FICO. Also 833, as it has been for months. Actually down from 842 after I cancelled joint accounts with my late wife. People forget that time on bureau also plays a part in scoring. |
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Lol, all these people who think our elections are a complete sham yet then decide to swing purses over fucking FICO scores and how they’re calculated…
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Quoted: You don’t need a credit score and chasing it is stupid for most people. View Quote Yep. If you’re going to take out a mortgage (or any other large, long term loan) in the next year, work on maximizing it. Otherwise, losing sleep over a 750 credit score is useless and you should be cashflowing everything. At least that’s how I look at it, but I’ve never been accused of being sophisticated. |
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Quoted: 51 y/o, house is paid off, cars are paid off, CC's are paid in full every month. Four weeks ago my score was at 752, today it drops to 744. I am almost out of the Very Good range. What is this nonsense? How do I not look like a great credit risk when it comes to finances? I've not had any hard credit inquiries for financing View Quote In your situation the score is influenced significantly by your credit card balance. If you run up the card(s) during the month your credit vs available credit ratio skews and your score drops. As soon as you pay off the cards each month your ratio swings and your score shoots up in real time. Check your score again right after you pay the cards off this month and you’ll see the score back up where it should be. |
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Quoted: Yep. If you’re going to take out a mortgage (or any other large, long term loan) in the next year, work on maximizing it. Otherwise, losing sleep over a 750 credit score is useless and you should be cashflowing everything. At least that’s how I look at it, but I’ve never been accused of being sophisticated. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: You don’t need a credit score and chasing it is stupid for most people. Yep. If you’re going to take out a mortgage (or any other large, long term loan) in the next year, work on maximizing it. Otherwise, losing sleep over a 750 credit score is useless and you should be cashflowing everything. At least that’s how I look at it, but I’ve never been accused of being sophisticated. Working on it or a year will likely not work out - it often takes long than that to correct mistakes on your credit - so I don't think this is a good plan. You don't need to "chase" your credit score. You simply need to understand how it is measured and take simple actions to correct things. 1. Pay your damned bills. 2. Pay your damned bills on time. 3. Pull your credit reports every year for free and review them for any negative entries or inaccuracies and get them resolved if present. 4. Your length of credit history matters. Keep your OLDEST credit card open. Never close it. Put some recurring bill on it that will keep it active (I use my Netflix subscription) and set the credit card to autopay every month. Zero maintenance. 5. Your average credit age matters. Don't close too many accounts, as this can impact your average credit age. 6. Your utilization matters, a LOT. If you use credit cards, even if you pay them off, make sure you are not going over 30% of the total utilization across all your revolving credit limits. Even 10% utilization matters. I typically avg 5% but when I breach 10% it impacts my score a few points. It gets worse the more utilization you have in a given month. So to improve this, simply ask you credit card companies to extend your maximum credit availability on each card, or make weekly payments on the cards to keep the balance lower. This should not be an issue for anyone with good credit, as most cards give crazy high limits automatically. 7. The number of accounts matter. You dont want too many, or too few. If you only have a single credit card, your score will be lower. I find 4-5 revolving credit accounts seems to maximize scoring, especially if you do not have other diverse types of debt (home, car, etc). 8. Diversity of accounts matter. Having revolving debt accounts, mortgage accounts, and installment loan accounts improve your score, as it displays you are responsible with multiple types of debts.... secured and unsecured. That said - you can maintain a very high score with ONLY credit cards. Prior to having a mortgage, I could get into the 790's pretty easily with just two credit cards and responsible history and utilization. |
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Credit scores are a joke, plain and simple. The wind blows your credit can go up or down.
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