The system directly rewards you for being in enough debt to always be paying someone interest but not enough that you might file for bankruptcy.
The only interest I pay is a mortgage, but my score is over 800. It must be rewarding for something else too.
It’s been a bit since I took personal finance, but I think it takes into account your assets too.
Sorry for the negative vote, but credit score does not take into account your assets. I just dont want folks to think that might be the case. Personal assets will come into play when a creditor considers you for a loan/line of credit/etc along side your actual credit score.
Edit: Well. This is turning into a wall of text.
Credit score is based on several things:
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Ratio of debt available to debt used. I’m trying to remember where the sweet spot is, but it’s somewhere around 10% to 20%. If your credit cards have a cumulative limit of $20k, aim for a maximum use of $2-4k. Pay off your previous balance so you don’t get hit with interest and you’ll gain credit.
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On time payments. At the very least, pay the minimum each month, but really one should be budgeting to pay it off each month to avoid interest.
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Oldest account. I don’t like or use my first credit card, but I still have it. Note: cards must be used periodically to keep them active otherwise they won’t be considered, I want to say every 3 months. So even for my oldest card, I have a small subscription on it that hits monthly. This gives me an active, old credit line.
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There are “good” forms of debt where on time payments is the name of the game. These are car loans, mortgages, etc. If you have the resources, set up auto pay on these so you never have to worry. Paying them off asap will save you on interest, but it could harm your credit as that is no longer an active line. It’s likely still in one’s benefit to pay them off, but then we get into a discussion of interest vs cost of money. That’s a different rabbit hole.
Uh, there’s other stuff, but my thumbs are tired. Hope this helps someone.
I have played around a bit credit score estimators on the credit agencies sites. If they are not lying, a few things found interesting.
The largest jumps in credit come from increasing the credit limit on existing credit cards. Opening a new card is a slight decrease in the score.
Mortgage and cars loans combined (installments) are how you get to “excellent credit”. When I was renting my credit was always 60 points lower. When I bought my first home my credit hit excellent for the first time 3 months later. When I paid off my cars my credit dropped by 20 points each time.
Late payments or missed payments on any account decrease the credit card the most.
Credit scores are designed to discourage you from taking out lots of loans in short amount of time. Buy a car, your score decreases for 3 months then bounces back up.