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Bought a car last week for wifey and they ran a credit report. I have had a ding on my credit for a charge off for over ten years. Not sure what they used but we were surprised when my score beat wifey's. Hers was 850 and mine came in at 870..I sure had fun with that info all day..We are just as normal as can be. Pay all our bills on time nothing special. Its been awhile since we checked our scores, so I was happy that the charge off is finally off my score.
My story - never paid much attention to credit scores, until I went into Macys one day in 2009, barely made it out with my underwear. They lowered my credit limit to $80, explaining "we don't extend credit to people with bad credit".
Shocked - I checked my score - 585!
All because the city of Seattle parking nazis have all tickets go to collection after 45 days, Alliance One the collection agency, doesn't even bother to contact you if it's below $100 (it was ~70) but they DO send it into the credit agencys, Experian, etc. as a means of intimidation.
I have a very common name and I don't even think it was my car, never found a record of the ticket.
After 7 years my credit is restored - I have 2 car loans, previously a mortgage, several credit cards.
But also decades of paying everything off on time.
I am pretty sure I will not be using debt anymore...credit score means little to me. My current mortgage payments will keep it high for the next 10 years...I guess it matters for job screenings and insurance rates?
I'm like a bunch of people in this thread. Four credit cards. $150-ish K line of credit. I primarily use one. They are all configured to auto-pay in full monthly. A big month with a lot of business travel, I might show $7 or $8 K in balance. I zeroed out my mortgage 3 or 4 years ago but it still shows up. That had also been configured to auto-pay in full. I pay cash for cars. My last car loan was in the 1980's. I had a small overdraft line of credit on my checking account I closed a couple of years ago when they started charging for it. Without a mortgage or a car loan, there's only so high it can go with their scoring system. The approximated credit scores on CreditKarma say 821 TransUnion and 819 Equifax. As a lot of people commented, it doesn't particularly matter. I'm unlikely to ever borrow money again. A credit check would look fine for a job background check or my insurance company assessing fraud risk.
Before auto-pay in full, I used to have a lot of late payments. I'd get busy, let the mail sit unopened for weeks, and procrastinate doing all that paperwork. I had plenty of money, just too self-absorbed to pay my bills on time. Since auto-pay became standard in the 1990's and I matured, that issue went away.
Highest I had was like 812/806 from two different FICO scores (I think Experian and Transunion). My wife is a little higher like 820 something and still hovering slightly below that. I went on a credit card binge to optimize CB (lucky to get the Sallie Mae before they no longer offered it, citi 2%) and take advantage of sign-up bonus points/miles. My FICO dropped to like 770-780. Now it's hovering in the 780-790 range. We are in the low to mid 30's. Never late on any payments. Try to stay within 10% credit card utilization. We had car payments in the past. Now just our home loan. Plan to refinance within the next 2 months. After that I may do more credit card churning. Maybe go for the Southwest companion pass. I also need to get a Discover IT to really maximize CB. I could care less if we both average above 800. As long as we are above 750 I'm good in case we decide to purchase another home again.
It's been in the mid 800's for a little over a year.
It's dropped to the low 800's because we're using a bit more of our credit in the past few months.
I pay heavy payments on our debt every year. I've paid off a student loan. I've paid off 3 car loans in full. And I've never been late on a payment, ever.
We have 2 car loans right now, and about 35k available credit.
I have about 14 years of credit history. And everything is taken out automatically.
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My story
