Elliii

good morning

Fucking credit score keeps going up and down 7-10 points per month and I'm not even doing anything with it lol

Hiya guys

hey

Ken - good score or bad?

/ going to be making use of it any time soon?

Credit scores are weird but -- like you say, if you're not using it -- not using credit -- that's "bad" for your score

Trying to improve it at 645

Yet equafax is 678

You need to show you can use credit / borrow money and pay it back to get a good score.

Some people think that means paying interest -- that is NOT correct.
For example, some think you need to "carry a balance" on your credit cards, and that if you pay the whole bill at once, that's bad.
Not true at all. If you can, perfectly fine to pay your card statement in full.

If you want your score to go up, don't close any credit cards - keep them all open as closing an account reduces your average age of credit account, which is bad.

Also how the algorithms work, if you have multiple cards, have the final monthly balance reported on them be 0 (as in pay off early so nothing charged to you in your bill) on all but one card. So only let one card have a balance that's reported to the agencies.

And keep your credit utilization below 30% - so if you're allowed to access $10,000 of credit, don't go above $3,000 or that looks bad.

I've been doing secured loans

645 isn't a bad score but sure can be better. If there are any bad marks on your history, I've seen some people successfully get these removed by asking

One friend is like 550 I'm like how lol

Thing is we get so comfortable living we don't really have anything else we want to buy until something happens to said expensive item and then you gotta take another loan to replace that

I did a secure loan once to build credit - worked well, specifically did a trick where the loan balance was kept at like 3% for 5 years. As having a loan basically paid off is good for your credit score.
So took out the (small) loan, paid 95% off immediately lol, then paid $2 a month for a few years.
Not every bank / credit union let you do that, and even the ones that do might think your behavior is weird lol

Over time secured loans can get you free shit if you're smart about payments the money essentially goes back to you

Paid like $100-150 or so in interest in total over those 5 years in return for a good bump of my credit score, worth it for me.

Say I want a $600 console I can save $100 per month while paying myself back within 6 months

Once your credit score is good enough you'll get approved for "good" credit cards, then get benefits with them I don't make the most of my benefits, some people truly min/max the whole thing and get enough points for free flights + hotel etc... Takes time though, I'm not that serious about it.

At a business perspective they can max at 20k within a month

Once you get to about 750 you're fine -- I don't believe you get a better rate for car loans / mortgages if you have a score of 820 vs 750.

Oh yeah if you have a business, or even just travel a lot for work, that will get you a ton of points lol
As many companies get you to book your own travel then reimburse you

Anyway - speaking of work, I need to get back to work Have a good day Ken + all other users

I'd hate to have that much stress

Amen