Americans paid $130 billion in credit card interest and fees in 2022, according to a new report. Here are three strategies to help limit those charges.
It’s possible, just tricky sometimes. You can have credit without a credit card, you can rent a home or a car without a credit score, and you can even buy a house without a “good” credit rating, you just need real landlords or real mortgage underwriting that looks at your financial situation as a whole.
It’s really silly. You could have a million bucks sitting in an account somewhere and your credit report wouldn’t say anything about that, but one look at your bank statements would be enough to tell a landlord or a mortgager you’re good to go.
I was fortunate enough to be able to sign up for a house payment (in this market! During the zombie apocalypse?!). When the time came for underwriting, they looked at 4 months worth of bank statements since my credit report just had my student loans and a car payment I got rid of in 2017 (in other words, not a “good enough” credit score). It was quite the eye opener of a process, having to explain every deposit to convince them I wasn’t laundering money.
Once that house is paid off, that’s the last time I’m going to have a credit score. I can get everything else without debt, I just didn’t have a cool $155k to drop on the house at the time. Hotels, car rentals, phone bills, electric bills, everything I’ve tried works fine without a credit check just using EFT or debit cards. Sometimes they charge a deposit, and that’s fine. I budget to account for that.
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It’s possible, just tricky sometimes. You can have credit without a credit card, you can rent a home or a car without a credit score, and you can even buy a house without a “good” credit rating, you just need real landlords or real mortgage underwriting that looks at your financial situation as a whole.
It’s really silly. You could have a million bucks sitting in an account somewhere and your credit report wouldn’t say anything about that, but one look at your bank statements would be enough to tell a landlord or a mortgager you’re good to go.
I was fortunate enough to be able to sign up for a house payment (in this market! During the zombie apocalypse?!). When the time came for underwriting, they looked at 4 months worth of bank statements since my credit report just had my student loans and a car payment I got rid of in 2017 (in other words, not a “good enough” credit score). It was quite the eye opener of a process, having to explain every deposit to convince them I wasn’t laundering money.
Once that house is paid off, that’s the last time I’m going to have a credit score. I can get everything else without debt, I just didn’t have a cool $155k to drop on the house at the time. Hotels, car rentals, phone bills, electric bills, everything I’ve tried works fine without a credit check just using EFT or debit cards. Sometimes they charge a deposit, and that’s fine. I budget to account for that.
If you have enough savings, sometimes they don’t even look at your credit score and history.
Which is a more privileged position than having the ability to be ‘smart’ with credit card usage…
The primary reason not to have a credit card is if you will use it as an actual line of credit in any situation other than an emergency.
If you have enough savings, you’re smart enough to know to use a credit card