Limited day ticket sales at all Vail Resorts this year

[jaytrem]

That's fine if you dont need to buy a house or buy a new car, but one of the top 4 or 5 aspects of your credit score is age-of-credit, which gets crushed by doing that. My oldest card I rarely use, but I'm not closing it simply because it's over 20 years old.

Every time you apply for a card it's a "hard" check as well, which negatively impacts your score, but this is minor as it only hurts for a year, whereas the age-of-credit impact is basically forever if you close your older cards. Again, as long as you're not buying a house, a car, a boat, or other common crucial credit score things, this isnt terribly relevant.

One other thing to keep an eye on is the % of available credit being used on a credit card at any given time. Even if you pay off your credit card every month, if your using a high percentage of the available credit when the scoring companies take a look, it can have a negative effect. My Citi card doesn't have a super high limit, so I tend to pay that down in the middle of the billing cycle if it gets too high for comfort.

Oddly enough, the number 1 thing bringing down my score is "Lack of recent insallment loan information", so if I don't have the cash to buy a car outright, my score will go up...

Lack of recent installment loan information
FICO® Scores consider recent non-mortgage installment loans (such as auto or student loans) information on a person’s credit report. Your score was impacted because your credit report shows no recent non-mortgage installment loans or insufficient recent information about your loans.

 

[cdskier]

One other thing to keep an eye on is the % of available credit being used on a credit card at any given time. Even if you pay off your credit card every month, if your using a high percentage of the available credit when the scoring companies take a look, it can have a negative effect. My Citi card doesn't have a super high limit, so I tend to pay that down in the middle of the billing cycle if it gets too high for comfort.

Yea...that actually can have a pretty big impact too. Usually my utilization is fairly low, but last month it jumped up quite a bit due to all the spending on wine purchases on my wine tasting vacation. That utilization jump dropped my score about 15 points. I remember last year when I had this same spending jump in a single month that I paid down the one CC in the middle of the cycle to lower the utilization. I didn't do that this time though. Will be interesting to see how quickly the score goes back up since my utilization rates should now be back to "normal".

 

[ss20]

That's fine if you dont need to buy a house or buy a new car, but one of the top 4 or 5 aspects of your credit score is age-of-credit, which gets crushed by doing that. My oldest card I rarely use, but I'm not closing it simply because it's over 20 years old.

Every time you apply for a card it's a "hard" check as well, which negatively impacts your score, but this is minor as it only hurts for a year, whereas the age-of-credit impact is basically forever if you close your older cards. Again, as long as you're not buying a house, a car, a boat, or other common crucial credit score things, this isnt terribly relevant.

My understanding of it all is that age of credit and number of inquiries is pretty low on priority for basing your score. I also doubt that someone with a 780 credit score would receive higher interest than 830. I was told at least, one you're in the high 700s going beyond that isn't going to help as you're already in the top credit category.

But I haven't looked into this stuff (besides my actual score obviously) in years. I live in my means and don't need credit for car purchases. House is lining up to have 30-40% down payment when that time comes.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Lack of recent installment loan information
FICO® Scores consider recent non-mortgage installment loans (such as auto or student loans) information on a person’s credit report. Your score was impacted because your credit report shows no recent non-mortgage installment loans or insufficient recent information about your loans.

Yes, this is IMO the most illogical thing about credit. If you pay off some loans, it actually hurts your credit score even though you're fundamentally more solvent. They lose the ability to monitor the way you're successfully paying off that debt. Completely idiotic frankly. A number of years ago I had $6,000 in student loan debt left on two loans from my masters, and I just got sick of it so I wrote out the $6,000 in checks one month. The next month my credit score got hammered!

 

[jimmywilson69]

That is silly. 1 that's not a huge amount of debt, 2 you're more solvent as you stated.

How many points did it drop?

 

[jaytrem]

Yeah, we did something similar. Paid off our mortgage with flood claim money. Didn't fell like dealing with the mortgage company inspections, so just told them to keep the money and send us what's left over. Credit scores never dropped too much as far as I can tell. Who knows maybe all the card shuffling we do actually helps our scores.

 

[Harvey]

I have no idea what my interest rate is, never carried a balance, since 1988. I have one card, the same card i had then.

Also for me, I will likely never borrow any money again, for the rest of my life. At least that is the plan now.

 

[deadheadskier]

On the subject of interest rates and how whack the finance industry is, I actually paid a higher interest rate on my first home loan because the loan was too small. This was during the financial meltdown of 2008. I was concerned about the state of the economy and the potential for layoffs for my wife or I. So, we purchased a home far less expensive than we could afford. I basically wanted something that we could afford on one bartenders income should either of us run into employment troubles.

So, every bank we went to at the time ended up tacking on an extra .5% with their offer. We eventually refinanced, but it was mind-blowing at the time. Banks at the time were failing all over the place in large part due to mortgage defaults because they all gave out loans beyond what would be afforded by their clients once the ARMs reset. But, despite the banks getting screwed, they all still felt the need to penalize responsible and cautious buyers. If anything I felt we should have been offered even better rates for being fiscally conservative

 

[BenedictGomez]

That is silly. 1 that's not a huge amount of debt, 2 you're more solvent as you stated.

How many points did it drop?

I cant recall precisely, but it was a lot. I think like low 50s.

 

[BenedictGomez]

I actually paid a higher interest rate on my first home loan because the loan was too small.

The reason for this is as simple as the fact they have to make money somehow. There needs to be some margin or it isnt worth their time (literally).

 

[Harvey]

If you pay all your bills all the time, it seems like you end up around 830 or a little higher.

But doesn't something like 760 get you into the highest category?

 

[JimG.]

If you pay all your bills all the time, it seems like you end up around 830 or a little higher.

But doesn't something like 760 get you into the highest category?

Yeah above that is really for bragging rights only.