this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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Yeah I dug into all this a while back while I was trying to raise my score. Turns out the most productive thing I did was just ask my current cards to up my limit. A couple of them doubled, so it dropped my utilization way down, which shot my score way up. I think I was around 675 and went up to 750 just with that trick. I got into the 800s by paying off the credit cards.
Its an annoying metagame you have to play to get the "good interest rates," but those little tricks can save you a fuckton of money over time.
I think the point here though isn’t as much ‘how do we play the game?’ as it is why there hell are we all forced into playing a metagame that is so inherently harmful and specifically designed to encourage risky behavior (I.e. the idea of debt being favorable)?
It's a measure lenders use to figure out how likely they are to make money from loaning to you. It's a very successful metric for them. It's not really for your best interest, but if you're aware of what goes into it there are simple, harmless things you can do to raise your score and help you get better rates.
Because the alternative is "how white are you"
Yep, find credit cards with no monthly fee and open them. I have 3 lines of credit and only use the one with the highest benefits. I pay off the bill after it hits my statement, and my credit is always 780-790. Also, like you said, up your limit if you can to get a lower debt to available credit ratio.
Edit: I bet the people down voting me have terrible credit lol.
Try paying it off before it hits the bill. I bet you can squeeze a few points out of it. A friend and I both do that and I've been at 804 since summer and his sits between 810 and 815. Although in truth there's no real difference between your lowest and my friend's highest in terms of what interest rates you'll get.
Every time I've done that it seems to tank my score by like 10 points. No idea what that's about, the whole system is so convoluted its hard to tell what really makes it go down when it does sometimes.
It's fucking weird for sure. If it works for you, do it.