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Grevlin

Grevlin

"Fly birdies!...fly!"
Administrator
#1
#1
This site where you can see two of your credit scores for free, and it helps you tweak things to improve your score.

Credit Karma
https://www.creditkarma.com/

It is actually free. They get paid from companies if you apply for and get credit cards off their site. But the credit scores and monitoring is free. Seems to be working well so far. I'm tweaking a few things to bump up my score before next year's commercial real estate adventures.



*Percent of available credit used is a huge factor. So getting another credit card or two does two things...it adds to your credit which improves your "credit utilization" percentage and it adds another good-standing account. Which is good. This is only if you need to work on your amount of credit used portion.

*** Biggest tip: Don't miss a payment over 30 days. Just ONE damn missed payment sent in to the credit agencies kills your score, and it lasts years and years. Just a single late payment. Crazy equations, but it is what its is.
 
COharbinger

COharbinger

Well-known member
#2
#2
Grevlin said:
This site where you can see two of your credit scores for free, and it helps you tweak things to improve your score.

Credit Karma
https://www.creditkarma.com/

It is actually free. They get paid from companies if you apply for and get credit cards off their site. But the credit scores and monitoring is free. Seems to be working well so far. I'm tweaking a few things to bump up my score before next year's commercial real estate adventures.



*Percent of available credit used is a huge factor. So getting another credit card or two does two things...it adds to your credit which improves your "credit utilization" percentage and it adds another good-standing account. Which is good. This is only if you need to work on your amount of credit used portion.

*** Biggest tip: Don't miss a payment over 30 days. Just ONE damn missed payment sent in to the credit agencies kills your score, and it lasts years and years. Just a single late payment. Crazy equations, but it is what its is.
Click to expand...
This is what im working on now. I have been putting huge payments towards my debt and my bank also automatically increased my limit so that made my availability go from almost maxed out to around 70%. And now with the payments I made im under 60% soon to be under 50%.

I used to think my dad was so annoying when he would tell me dont use credit cards, its not free money. And I wish I would have listened. Now with my wedding coming up long term financial stability is more important than stuff
 
sauced07

sauced07

Well-known member
#7
#7
While credit scores are needed they’re a load of crap. I paid a car loan off a year and a half early and my score nosedived. I asked a banker to explain it to me and he literally twisted himself mentally into a pretzel trying to explain it. I was told I didn’t have enough open accounts to keep my score higher. It’s a game to keep you in debt. Pay all your loans off and see where your score goes.
 
HandLoad

HandLoad

May GOD BLESS AMERICA!
#8
#8
We almost NEVER carry any balance from one Month to the next, paying them off by Month End, for over 30 Years. Have paid off Two Vehicles Waay Early, $35K by 2004 (was a 2002, New), and a 2017 $65K in/By 2018. Made an unnoticeable change, if any.... We Paid off a HELOC for 120K Years Before Term. Are in Process of Paying off Home Loan by adding more than $20K to payments every Year....no effect discernable.

Guesstimating that Our use of Available Credit lines is less than 20%,
 
Last edited:
Grevlin

Grevlin

"Fly birdies!...fly!"
Administrator
#9
#9
Installment loans (car, house, personal, student loans) don't get put in "credit utilization" just the "revolving credit" like credit cards.

And age of oldest active account determines age of your overall credit.


I got dinged a bit because I paid off my vehicle. That was my oldest active account. When it got closed it went to an account that is just 3.5 years old. So my "personal credit" is now only 3.5 years old. Best to have it at 5+ years. (Nope, student loans don't count.)

Ideally, just get a credit card or two and keep them for years and years. Just charge something every once and a while and pay it off at the end of the month. Those will become your oldest accounts. Don't close them.

And credit score does not seem to "scale" much. As in...$50,000 in available credit on credit cards, or $1000 available. Does not make a difference. They go by percent of available credit you are using/not using.
 
COharbinger

COharbinger

Well-known member
#10
#10
Grevlin said:
Installment loans (car, house, personal, student loans) don't get put in "credit utilization" just the "revolving credit" like credit cards.

And age of oldest active account determines age of your overall credit.


I got dinged a bit because I paid off my vehicle. That was my oldest active account. When it got closed it went to an account that is just 3.5 years old. So my "personal credit" is now only 3.5 years old. Best to have it at 5+ years. (Nope, student loans don't count.)

Ideally, just get a credit card or two and keep them for years and years. Just charge something every once and a while and pay it off at the end of the month. Those will become your oldest accounts. Don't close them.

And credit score does not seem to "scale" much. As in...$50,000 in available credit on credit cards, or $1000 available. Does not make a difference. They go by percent of available credit you are using/not using.
Click to expand...
My oldest is my credit card at 7 years, other than that I have a stupid collections account and a $500 credit line on my checking account that I never use that is also 7 years old
 
Grevlin

Grevlin

"Fly birdies!...fly!"
Administrator
#11
#11
COharbinger said:
My oldest is my credit card at 7 years, other than that I have a stupid collections account and a $500 credit line on my checking account that I never use that is also 7 years old
Click to expand...
On the collections account. When you decide to pay it off. First call the collections agency and tell them you are ready to pay it off, but you will require them to FIRST send you a letter saying they will remove the collection after you pay. THEN pay it off. They will either follow through and remove it, or you can wait a couple months and if they don't remove it- you put in a formal dispute and using the letter you have, the credit agency will force them to remove it. (y)

(I'll be doing that with a lil $91 collection that came out of nowhere.)

You can expect a 20-25 point bump when when you do that.
 
COharbinger

COharbinger

Well-known member
#12
#12
Grevlin said:
On the collections account. When you decide to pay it off. First call the collections agency and tell them you are ready to pay it off, but you will require them to FIRST send you a letter saying they will remove the collection after you pay. THEN pay it off. They will either follow through and remove it, or you can wait a couple months and if they don't remove it- you put in a formal dispute and using the letter you have, the credit agency will force them to remove it. (y)

(I'll be doing that with a lil $91 collection that came out of nowhere.)

You can expect a 20-25 point bump when when you do that.
Click to expand...
I worked with them to reduce the price. I have an email saying it will be removed after paid in full. I had to pay towards it to move into my apartment though. If not I would have just waited the extra year till it fell off of my report.
 
Grevlin

Grevlin

"Fly birdies!...fly!"
Administrator
#13
#13
COharbinger said:
I worked with them to reduce the price. I have an email saying it will be removed after paid in full. I had to pay towards it to move into my apartment though. If not I would have just waited the extra year till it fell off of my report.
Click to expand...
Very nice. You know the game. :cool:(y)
 
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