The White Whales - Perfect Credit Scores?

[bloom2708]

I am not keeping a mortgage or other debt to seek a perfect credit score. With no loans, we stay at 820-825.

They can have their "lack of recent installment loans".

 

[rodi]

Mine was in the 840's until I closed some credit cards I wasn't using. Now it's in the 820's-830's. One was going to add an annual fee, and the other was closed by the creditor for lack of use.

Don't have to worry about had inquiries since my credit is frozen. I pay everything in full, each month. But usually don't make interim payments between statements. My balances can be large due to travel and recurring charges like health insurance. But, ask I said, paid in full each month. (Anything I can, I put on the card, to get the max cashback rewards.) No mortgage or car loans. I had a zero percent car loan a few yeas ago and was surprised that my score went up during that time frame.

 

[rodi]

Both my sons are starting their credit score journey. They both recently qualified for their first cards, $500 limits. Both pay it off as soon as they make the charge and are having fun watching their score improve. But the factor they can't change is time... At ages 20 and 22 they need a longer credit history for a great score.

 

[disneysteve]

My wife and I both maintained perfect 850 scores for quite a while - then we paid off our mortgage. Now it hangs around 830 ever since.

 

[Walt34]

Ours is always in the low 800's, last time I checked it was 830, which I think was a new high for me. We haven't had a mortgage for 23 years and we briefly had a car loan for two months about nine years ago. So the only outstanding loans we have are cc balances which like most here we pay off every month. I think some utilities also report to credit bureaus but I might be mistaken about that.

Credit card companies refer to people like us as "deadbeats" because we don't pay interest, late fees, over limit fees, and the other assorted junk fees they can think up. I guess they grump at having to settle for the 2% to 5% they can gouge from the retailers. Being that kind of deadbeat I can stand.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Mine is 811 and I have a small mortgage and pay off my CC’s monthly.

 

[Koolau]

Around 820 because we end up with a significant balance at end of month. So balance to available ratio is "high" according to the algorithm. If we sent a check to the CC co. BEFORE we spent the money, we'd end up close to 850 - but why?

 

[scrabbler1]

For many years, mine was between 805 and 830. But the last 5 months it has spiked upward, over 830 and as high as 842. I don't know why. I pay in full every month. No mortgage since 1998 and no car loans ever.

Before 5 months ago, I saw downward spikes if I had a large balance (for me, that's $1k, when I put my car insurance on the card twice a year). Then, it returned to the 820s a month later.

I last changed my credit limit in 2015.

 

[REWahoo]

Once I retired and had little need for debt, I reset my priorities. I now monitor my blood pressure, not my credit score.

 

[Car-Guy]

^^^^^Hope it's well under 850.

 

[REWahoo]

^^^^ I try to keep the total under 200.

 

[disneysteve]

We just took a loan out for a car (36 months at 3.1%). We'll pay it off early, but it will help me manage my taxes. We sit down with the sales person and he said of our score - "I've never seen one this high before."

Been there, done that.


We went to buy a car years ago. The sales person went in the back to do the credit check. When he came back, he said "Are you sure you don't want two cars?" He had never had a customer with a perfect 850 before.

 

[TheWizard]

Been there, done that.


We went to buy a car years ago. The sales person went in the back to do the credit check. When he came back, he said "Are you sure you don't want two cars?" He had never had a customer with a perfect 850 before.

Ok, but when you're paying cash for a new car, like I hope to do later this year, your credit score doesn't matter too much.
Right?

 

[disneysteve]

Ok, but when you're paying cash for a new car, like I hope to do later this year, your credit score doesn't matter too much.
Right?

True. We paid cash for my wife's car last year. I was going to pay cash for mine in 2020 but there was a delay in transferring funds so I ended up taking a loan and going back and paying it off a week later.

 

[Jerry1]

Ok, but when you're paying cash for a new car, like I hope to do later this year, your credit score doesn't matter too much.
Right?

Right. Doesn’t matter at all. Closest it comes to mattering is that it could impact the rate you pay for your car insurance if they use your credit score for pricing.

 

[finnski1]

Well I must be the delinquent in the group. Mine is only 794.
No mortgage for 17 years, no car loans in a long time, no installment loans and card automatically paid each month on the due date.
Not sure why I'm not over 800 but I don't think it matters.

 

[Dtail]

Around 820 because we end up with a significant balance at end of month. So balance to available ratio is "high" according to the algorithm. If we sent a check to the CC co. BEFORE we spent the money, we'd end up close to 850 - but why?

As I mentioned upthread, just change the credit card period cycle to a few days ahead of the end of the month, so one has limited usage to available debt ratio.
It is a one time change and requires no monitoring.

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

Mine is currently 822 according to credit karma.
I pay off my credit cards every month and have a mortgage.
Got a nasty gram from Citi Bank saying if I didn’t use my card they would cancel it. I got the card for a specific reason and haven’t used it since. I needed to pay a bill that was automatically billed to my other credit card so I was going to use the Citi bank card to make them happy. Except the card I have is expired. I must have shredded the new card that they sent. [emoji23]

My mom never used credit cards and hasn’t had a mortgage in years. she’s in her 90’s but she wanted a credit card for something specific- can’t remember what but she couldn’t get one because she didn’t have any established credit. She got a prepaid card? I think to get her credit established again.

So no giving up credit card usage for me.

 

[disneysteve]

So no giving up credit card usage for me.

I would never give up credit cards. Using them is far too lucrative. We get hundreds and hundreds of dollars in cash back and rewards each year for spending that we are going to do anyway.

 

[Chuckanut]

Never really tried to be "perfect" but when I check, mine is usually around 805 to 810. A little silly from my POV since for the last 30+ years, I have always paid my CC's in full each month, I've always paid my utility bills on time/early and I have/had no loans. Not that I really care, but what do they want?

You are what some banks call a “freeloader”, because you don’t pay interest and/or generate fee income. FWIW, I am one also.

 

[jollystomper]

My credit score has varied between 820 and 835 for the past year. Currently it is at 830. The big factor has been the amount of outstanding credit card debt. That tends to be high when we are traveling as we charge everything, so our credit utilization percentage can be relatively high periodically.

 

[Realizm]

I’m only at 750, I have a perfect record but only have a home and 1 credit card that I pay off monthly. Started building credit like 5 years ago so there isn’t much history. I mostly worked on it with a $500 self funded card, whatever they’re called. Got rid of that about a year ago which was most of my credit history when they started charging a yearly fee to hold MY $500 on loans to myself… insane… I use my Apple Card for almost every purchase since it gives me cash back up to 3%. I like the instant notifications, everything is right on my phone, security features, payment system, and I can share it with my wife. Convenient for when I forget my wallet and I just have my phone or watch making a quick run to the store just around the corner. I’d like a card that is better for specific purchases like gas, I have nothing but Irving’s around me but they seem to only have a rewards program.

I don’t think I’ll ever have a perfect credit score the way I’m going, they seem to punish me a lot for only having 2 lines of credit and hardly any history. It would be really cool though… I don’t know anyone personally that has a better score than me and everyone on here seems to be way ahead lol.

 

[rodi]

Ok, but when you're paying cash for a new car, like I hope to do later this year, your credit score doesn't matter too much.
Right?

Twice I've paid cash for a car and they still ran my credit. Like the story above, the guy gave the line of "I've never seen a credit score this high". (Which I think is a sales smoke blowing line.) The second time was a real pain because my credit was locked and I had to unlock it to buy the car... That triggered me to take them up on a 0% loan. (Which I still paid off early because I don't like debt.)

 

[jazz4cash]

I paid “cash” for a car because I was in the midst of a home refi. I specifically asked them not to pull my credit and they agreed. They called my credit union “off the record”. A month later I received the mandatory letter to notify me that they pulled a credit report anyway. I was furious and planned to file a complaint. That’s when I learned that they were entitled to do so without permission because I wrote a personal check. The refi was not affected.

 

[HI Bill]

Unfortunately, the credit scores 'measure' how well you utilize credit. Having a lot of available credit helps the score, as does low utilization (<30% of credit limit per account, every month). The reason I make interim CC payments is to keep my utilization low for my primary cards. They also value a variety of credit classes (mortgage, installment loan, credit card, etc.). It used to drive me crazy that my mom, who was terrible with credit cards (racking up debt and not paying it off in full monthly) had a better credit score than I did. The travesties of the rating systems, IMHO, are that they don't consider payments in full for CCs, just the month-end balances for utilization calculations, and they don't consider one's assets. I laughed when I asked for an increase on one card when I was going on vacation, and they said that they thought I had the correct amount of credit based on my income and credit score.