I was able to find a good list of FREE credit reports at cardtrak(dot)com/credit_reports

If you are good about it, just sign up for the one you want and cancel really quick… It saves me money!

The main thing to watch in situations like that is your debt to credit ratio. If your credit limit is $1000 and you charge $900, then that counts as using 90% of your credit limit, whether you pay off the balance at the end of the month or not. If you routinely charge and pay off $900 or so per month, ask for a credit limit of $5000 or so. Getting your limit increased will ding your score a little, but it’s a one-time thing, and you’ll be better off in the long run because you’re using a lower percentage of your limit.

If you are debt free, keep the credit card count low.

Number of cards, or amount of available credit? I’ve only got three credit cards, only one of which I use (to separate my business expenses, which I pay off every month), but the combined credit limits are about half our annual household income.

thanks!

Had a card for going on 20 years, but did not receive good customer service. Actually received poor service on multiple occasions. Requested to close the account and the supervisor argued with me that since I had the card so long that it would lower my credit score. Told ‘em I didn’t care, that I wanted the account closed. I rarely used this card anyway. It seemed that they knew my legnth of history and figured that they didn’t have to accomodate me with lower interest rates, etc…that I wouldn’t go anywhere to preserve my score.

My credit score was excellent prior to closing the account, and while the score may have dropped a couple of points it remained in the excellent range. If you want to close an account, go ahead! Just be careful if you are buying a house or securing a big loan where you need every point of your score…but after that, close it!

I open cards to get the deals, pay the card, and shut them down. The longest credit history I have is one I’ve had for only 3 years. I constantly open and close accounts to rotate my debt to 0% introductory fees. Half my cards are maxed out (the 0% fee cards), and I pay all my cards on time (credit cards that I use for Rewards that don’t have 0% fees, I pay in full each month). I have plenty of money in the bank to pay them off, but…. why bother, with 0% financing?!

My point is that the most important thing is to pay your cards on time. You can have multiple credit cards. You can have a high amount of available debt. You can open and close credit cards relatively frequently, and you can even have a credit history of only a few years. If you’re shooting for a credit score of over 720 (generally consider A+ credit), you really only have to pay your bills on time. Could I be nearer to 800? Of course. Does it really matter, when all I have to do is pay on time each month? Not at all.

As an aside, freeannualcreditreport.com is really easy to use, and is actually free. Though you can only pull your free report once a year, and it doesn’t give you your SCORE for free, there’s a lot of useful information in your credit reports that should be checked for accuracy. (I found a couple of small errors that were no problem to correct, I did it right through the site.)

If they did, people living without credit cards who were responsible would have great credit.

I’ve heard a rumor that you can request something be reported to the credit agencies- how would one do this? I’ve never had a credit card or a loan, but I’ve paid bills on time for thirty years. My credit is apparently horrid/nonexistent.

How can you fix this, short of actually getting a subprime card and paying huge fees? There seems to be no way to apply prompt payments of regular bills to a credit report- only failures to pay.

One question about your last point… What if you have no debt because you pay cash for your house and cars? Will getting a credit card lower your score even if you pay it off monthly? You wouldn’t carry a balance, but for 1 month periods at a time, you would have a balance, and that (and possibly your utility bills) would be your only debt.

I like your rule of thumb but it doesn’t show up as a hard pull everytime you give someone permission to pull your credit score. Prosper and the other p2p lending compnies, for example, are soft pulls.

The more information you can provide about yourself, the more comfortable lenders may feel extending credit to you. In addition, certain information — such as having the same job or address for a few years — can make you appear to be more stable in lenders’ eyes. While this information isn’t used in creating your credit score, it’s often used by lenders in addition to credit scores to make lending decisions. You may also find that your report doesn’t include credit accounts or other information that it should.

Just wanted to send out a message about a website I created (http://www.finmind.com) for personal finance since it could help out people here. I used to do all my finance stuff on Excel, but that was a pain because I had different versions floating around on different computers.

This website does stuff like track expenses, create a budget, etc. If you want to give it a try, visit http://www.finmind.com. It’s free and I am not making any money off of it (no ads). Send me any comments if you have feedback or suggestions.

Thanks,
Hogan