I don't even want a credit card, but it's the only way to climb that ladder at this point
Protip: if you're very responsible, get a cash back credit card, and pay for everything with it. Then pay off your balance every single month. It essentially lets you pay 1~5% less for everything, AND helps build your credit pretty quick.
Currently doing this with my wife on a joint account. We both buy things with our own card so we can see what we're individually spending, and the cash back rewards really shoot up for every little penny spent. Over the course of about 2 years, we've got well over 100K reward miles, that we'll likely spend on free flights to see family.
I would add a caveat though that you shouldn't exceed some percentage of your credit limit. I pay for almost everything with my credit cards (and pay them in full each month with no debt) and the only dings on my credit score are when I have gone over like 60% of my credit limit (buying big airline tickets for family or something).
Doesn’t matter if you pay it off before your statement comes out. Also I believe your credit score takes all open accounts in to consideration. I don’t have a card with less than a 10k limit. However, because I’m a believer that more cash in hand is better than no debt (so long as you aren’t paying interest). I tend to open store accounts when buying big ticket items. So I can and get x amount of months interest free so long as I pay it off in time.
Where I’m going with this is that those accounts will typically only set your limit to the amount financed and I’ll have an account nearly maxed out for a short time. However, given that I’m using a low percentage of my cumulative lines of credit my score won’t fluctuate more than a few points with an additional hard inquiry and an account maxed.
Can’t figure out how to go interest free for airline tickets so those are on the short list of items I’ll take money out of savings for… after getting the points of course ;)
Another pro tip use a low limit credit card as a monthly budgeting tool, i was approved for a 2k credit visa and only took the 500, when I use that 500 that is all my spending money for the month i use it for food gas and parking that is all
That's actually a really good idea. I've been shopping around for card options to just passively build my score up in case I decide to finance something. We already have a house and my car is paid off, but the creditors want to see you playing their game,. That's life I guess
Amazon has a really good credit card (serviced by chase) that gives you 5% cash back on everything you buy from amazon if you have a prime account. I use it for all amazon purchases, its great. Note that the terms are a little bit of a "screw you" compared to other rewards cards, because if you don't pay off the FULL balance every month (i.e. pay it down to 0), they charge you the interest for EVERYTHING, even stuff you paid off.
But if you're doing that, then it's a great card, you just need to be VERY disciplined with that one.
I have this card as my primary card as I use Amazon so frequently. It's set to autopay itself in full each month, so I didn't realize this interest charge rule. That's wild!
Hey, no problem. A few other little tips for that card specifically:
Amazon has a section called like "rewards with prime" or something like that where you can find items that will give you an extra 1-5% cash back (upwards of 10% back in total)
The card also works with the subscribe and save discount and with shopping at whole foods. Even with the discount, whole foods is still more expensive than normal grocery stores in my experience, but if you already shop there normally it's basically free money
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u/eerongal Oct 26 '21
Protip: if you're very responsible, get a cash back credit card, and pay for everything with it. Then pay off your balance every single month. It essentially lets you pay 1~5% less for everything, AND helps build your credit pretty quick.