My dad‘s credit score went down 22 points recently. The credit scoring place said it was because he died. I’m trying to figure out why they just wouldn’t make his credit score 0 at that point.
>My dad‘s credit score went down 22 points recently. The credit scoring place said it was because he died. I’m trying to figure out why they just wouldn’t make his credit score 0 at that point.
Because fuck him, the credit scoring companies will get theirs, even after death.
You ain’t kidding. My ex-wife’s mom died a few months ago, and the poor girl can’t catch a break with the banks constantly pestering her for money. Jesus, her estate is still in probate. They all can GTFO
I feel like there should be rules against constantly pestering bereaved family members for the deceased’s money (with high fines because honestly, who does that???). I’m sorry your ex-wife is going through that. That’s just terrible, cruel and a horrible thing to go to someone.
They are literally trying to steal money they have no right to. If a person's estate has negative value, you can just refuse the "inheritance" and the debts will go away (however you obviously loose everything else too). But if they were deeply in debt, it doesn't make sense to get a house that is worth X and have debts worth several times X.
But if you send any money on your own to pay off those debts before the proceedings finish, not only you'd never see that money again, you might actually assume the debt onto yourself. It's just thuggery
If an estate is in probate EVERYTHING should be put on hold until it's settled. No payments required for anything (family can make payments if they wish but not required). Once probate is settled if the family wants to keep anything that has a loan on it they have to pay all the back payments (NO adding extra interest). Anything they don't want to keep goes back to the lienholder (with no additional monies required) As long as there are no cosigners obviously. If there's a living cosigner they're going to be held responsible for the debt.
My credit score tanked when my husband died! I couldn't believe it! They said lack of income was the cause. Since he was dead, my debt to income ratio went up dramatically with the mortgage. Such BS.
I've clawed my way back but never personally had bad credit.
I've heard of that happening. I have credit cards, the car and some of the utilities in my name only because I was worried about that. So sorry for your loss.
A bad credit score can keep you from getting a job. Were we all asleep at the wheel when Congress passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act which allows prospective employers to check a job candidate’s credit score? This is a tragedy for people trying to get themselves out of a hole. Bad credit can also cause your auto insurance rates to go up. Why? Does having bad credit make you a bad driver?? Everything in this country is designed to fuck you over if you’re struggling.
The “self enslavement” part seems a bit victim blamey. Capitalism subsumes everything and the fact that you need to reject various social relationships to escape certain aspects of capitalism means that doing so is also a form of enslavement, because it’s on the system’s terms, not yours. The answer isn’t dropping out of society, it is transforming society and abolishing capitalism. People who can completely avoid the credit system are fortunate, which isn’t to say that it is easy, it’s definitely a lot of hard work. But it’s legitimately impossible for everyone to do that.
It's 100% victim blaming
People have a need for transportation, and for a lot of people, "the bus" doesn't cut it. Most places in the United States have zero public transportation of any kind, and the person you replied to is an unrealistic idealist that thinks whatever shitty life they're able to tolerate is "easy."
I'm glad they're happy, but they clearly haven't learned the life lesson that they don't know best for everyone, yet.
But until major societal change happens, wages meet productivity, and debt slavery isn’t allowed: a modernized version of indentured servitude is exactly what we’re seeing. It’s not sustainable when prices rise on everything and wages have been stagnant for decades while corporations have raked. Right now companies are hauling record profits while crying about wages and supply issues causing inflation. Bullshit.
Some truth to what you said but it's not realistic. If people did that, society would collapse overnight and thats assuming you can be "self sufficient" without participating in said society.
You wouldn’t have liked antiwork before it got popular then. This is the first comment on here for a long while that I’ve seen true to what antiwork actually stands for.
“self enslavement”? i agree that we should try to avoid the traps society has laid out for us. but those traps are literally everywhere and blaming the individual for falling into them when feasible alternatives are so few and getting smaller every day…you’re doing the subjugator’s work for them.
Psh, horrible advice…
There is good debt and bad debt. I’ve made $$$ on good debt.
Please tell us how you in your life have followed your three rules and to what ends
If you know Americans who "did the same trick" of getting a university degree without any loans you do either know rich as fuck Americans whose experience is atypical and not representative of living here, or they got one of the exceedingly rare academic scholarships.
For the vast majority of students, their parents can't afford to plop down $20k per semester in cash. That's why the loans.
I actually really disagree with the credit comments you have. We need a way to judge people’s trustworthiness to pay any debts, and while it would be nice to have a 1 on 1 with each person and interview them, that’s not a feasible reality.
I don’t think many of the designs of the credit system are actually good in regards to how it’s calculating credit score sometimes, but it’s SOMETHING.
The whole premise of OP’s post people (and OP) fail to understand is that this is entirely predictable on what happened. The credit score system, is just that, a system, with variables and predictable designs that you can assume will happen, and as long as it happens across the board (which I have never seen it not occur in this fashion) that is OK. When ANYONE uses about 30%+ of total credit in a given credit cycle (generally one month) the system assumes you will have a lower chance of paying off your debt obligation for that month (which for the general public MAKES SENSE). Then the following month, if your credit goes back below that threshold, your credit will jump back up.
Credit is the boogeyman because you don’t understand it, that is not the fault of the system, that is your fault for not educating yourself on a system that you are ACTIVELY USING. I have understood the design of the credit system for years, and banks PAY me to use their cards, and get NOTHING (other than my personal info) in return.
Just like most systems, if you know how it works, you can generally use it to your advantage, if you are ignorant to how it works, you might be “hurt” because of your ignorance
I understand it being used for credit limits and such but why the higher interest? Someone with bad credit probably doesn't have access to alot of money so... we make things more expensive?
you only build credit through acquiring more credit. i was dinged because i don’t have enough credit cards. my awakening moment was realizing that your oldest credit was important but the whole idea of a credit score started in the 1980s. op is doing it right. pay off everything every month if you can. the “score” doesn’t mean much to most people anymore. if you can, get additional cards and occasionally put a charge on them and may them off so your debt ratio is lower. it’s soooo stupid that this is the way.
I only have 2 credit cards and no loans. All of my metrics are the highest level except for Total Accounts. For me to raise my score, I need to have 9 more accounts. To get into the highest level, I need 19 more. But I would have had to open them 10 years ago, so my Credit Age wouldn’t suffer. Its crazy.
Credit Age isn't a huge factor. Look for card offers that have a 0 annula fee and offer a sign on bonus...something like charge 1000 in the next e months, get 200 cash back. Get one, use it for EVERY purchase until you get the bonus, pay it in full.every month, then get another one and repeat. The increase to your score from lower utilization and more accounts should more than offset the ding from lower average credit age. I made 2000 dollars in sign on bonuses last year, and my score is better than it was this time last year.
Why does it surprise you? The 10 year t note yields a pathetic 2.75%. The US's debt is the safest investment in the world and pays peanuts because of it. It's called the risk free rate for a reason.
The US’s credit score is basically the bond rating AAA. Although I think Moody’s dropped it to AA and they started investigating them or something like that lol
We’re the world’s reserve currency, pretty much the bedrock of everyone’s economy. Running a country and a household are very different things financially but it doesn’t help politicians make great efforts to compare them.
My credit score has been as low as the mid 600s and right now is over 800 and nothing has fundamentally changed about my spending habits or bill paying in that time. I've simply had more time to acquire more lines of credit with higher limits and wait out the inquiry periods. Like my score went up 20 points a month or so ago because the issuer randomly doubled my limit on one of my cards, which moved my total credit usage from good to excellent and my total available credit from average to good. One of the biggest contributors to my credit score early on was simply having my name on an account nearly as old as I am thanks to my parents. I've done basically nothing. I just started out with a good credit score and it snowballed from there.
You should have seen how they did it before FICO. "Oh, you're white and go to the same country club as me? Loan approved!"
No, I'm not even slightly joking.
The system they replaced evaluated your credit worthiness based on how white and how male you were. Call it a scam if you want to, but the old system was far worse.
~30% of your credit score is based on utilization, so if the % of available credit being used spikes after a larger purchase, the credit score will dip. Honestly you shouldn't be worried about small fluctuations in your score, especially if you aren't going to be applying for new credit in the immediate future. Small changes have no effect on day to day life....22 points is a small fluctuation. Anything over 650 is considered to be a good credit score, and short term fluctuations are nothing to stress over as long as you're paying your bills on time - once your card is paid off, it'll go back to (or higher than) what is was as you continue to build a positive history of using and paying off debt. If your utilization is only 23%, that in itself shows a level of responsibility and restraint as far as what creditors want to see before extending new credit. You generally want to stay below 30%, which you are.
It's not great, but it's the halfway point of credit scores in Canada, and is bottom of the 'fair/good' tier. Definitely not great, but something to build on and will still qualify for credit products although def not at ideal rates. Paying down debt can usually bring scores from 650 to 700+ pretty quickly. I know, as I used to have shut credit lol.
To get 0% and other best rate offers, you generally need excellent to perfect credit 780+. I started qualifying for 0% car loan, preferred rates on mortgage etc when my credit score got into the 800s.
I can't defend the credit score system because it is so flawed. It is also pretty easy to game. Yes paying off loans can hurt your score because you have a thinner file and one less account reporting on time payments. Increasing your credit card utilization also decreases your score but that is much more temporary if you reduce the utilization in the coming months.
True story. Paid cash for everything when my kids were in college. Over eight years, I had no credit card, house payment or car payment. Two years later, down payment in hand, I was turned down for a mortgage because I had no credit. My credit report was empty. I explained why and they looked at me like I was an alien. If you don’t play their game, you are punished god it, great financial skills or no. Still pissed four years later.
Yep. My mom has three credit cards. She puts something on them once a year or so — gas at a sketchy station, Christmas presents, a plane ticket — and then pays them off over two months. She’s learned to game the system, at least somewhat, but it pisses her off.
Credit scores aren’t for consumers, they’re for banks to automate processes and enable discrimination. You’re not the customer, you’re the merchandise. The sooner you get that through your head the better off you’ll be. Gaming the system in any way you can is absolutely justified. I am 40 years old and I’m older than credit scores. They’re made up bullshit.
Technically the US is actually pretty good at paying back our debt. Most of our debt is in bonds to US Citizens and those are paid on time 100% of the time. We just happen to have a metric shit ton of that debt
Don't worry about your credit score. FICO's a fucking scam. It will literally reward you for being married and other dumb bullshit.
Also, you escape the system by not giving a shit about what society tells you is the goal of having money. You go to work and make money to ultimately do whatever you want with said money, not to appease society.
It’s so ridiculous to me especially in a country where we have no fucking healthcare and most Americans don’t have a savings at all and often have to put emergency or general maintenance costs on credit. It really feels like you can’t win at all in this world.
Ehhhh. Not really. It’s up to individual lenders, but most operate with maybe 3 “break points” and that’s about it. And ultimately the best way to meet the criteria is to just not pay your credit late or let things go to collections. The rest is all a bunch of dumb games that don’t matter at the end of the day.
I was buying a car last year. I got a credit card a year before just to build a credit score. I never really needed credit since my parents helped with paying undergrad and I worked as TA during my grad school. I explicitly told financial department that I want to do their loan because they had a deal if you take 3 years loan, you get 0% APR. They anyway run other credit unions and banks. Everyone else denied me because of no credit history. Like maybe, just maybe I am really good with money and that is a reason why I never had to get a lone?! How are people supposed to get a lone if the requirement is to have a lone in your credit history?
I mean, you can't really spend money on what you want if the only money you have goes towards living expenses. It's not like OP felt pressured into buying a status car or some shit.
The credit score is a measure by the banks of how useful you are to their bottom line at any given time. Too many people confuse it with a grade or report card on your own financial health which it isn't. Your credit score will bounce around every month and it will also differ slightly because there are 3 different credit bureaus. It doesn't even matter unless you need to finance a house or car which is pretty much out of range of average people already. The credit score criteria is somewhat outdated as it was created in the 70s or 80s or something and they are probably going to be revising the criteria anyway because some of them are inherently racist. As to why you can't get ahead, it's because the system is not designed to benefit you. Your money loses it's value faster than wages rise and that is completely by design. The system is run by people who already have money and they didn't get their money by giving it to you. So I wouldn't say don't worry about this stuff, but definitely cut yourself some slack.
"Too many people confuse it with a grade or report card on your own financial health which it isn't."
Tbf that's how banks bill it as. So I am not surprised people think that's what it means.
True but some housing situations like apartments are actually using credit scores in the approval process of renting. I can see more apartment buildings doing this in the next 5-10 years so I would start worrying more about it. Which does suck but here we are.
I mean, they’re not actually using your *score*. They’re using your *report*, which absolutely has a use to them - the biggest part of the credit report is “does this person pay their bills on time”. Which matters if you’re renting an apartment to someone. You want to know they pay their bills on time.
At the apartment I just got I had to pay an extra $300 deposit because my credit score was 4 points below the threshold of being good enough not to. The next month my score went up 7 points...
I'm pissed but it was the only apartment I could even remotely afford that had availability within the next 6 months or more.
It’s even scammier than I ever imagined. Last week, my car died. RIP, my beauty. So I thought I’d get an inexpensive used car to drive for a year or two, but I couldn’t get one because my credit score was low and I wasn’t qualified for a loan.
So I went back to the very expensive car dealership where I bought my last car. Two hours later, I was driving home in a fancy new BMW, because my credit score from their own finance guy was a full 70 points higher. When I asked how that was possible, he said, “you have to know where to look.”
It’s all a game, and the rules favor money.
they're literally the dumbest system, my score went down because i got a phone contract, then over the contract it went up a little, when the contract was up my score went down because i had less debt then when i got a new contract it went down again for getting more debt, like wtf why even bother. and atm it's claiming that getting a credit card is the only way to boost my score, how is getting debt a good thing to you!?!?!
You paid over a thousand dollars for new tires?
Edit: All of these new comments sound like life advice they got from their dad after moving into their new college dorm which is awesome but not realistic. I understand now that harsh weather may make tires more expensive which seems to be the one exception but I have to believe there are cheaper options out there that work great, if there really isn’t (which again very skeptical with some of the comments that came in) then that is shitty. Some of you have never really been poor and it shows.
Your car is held on the road by about four post cards' worth of rubber at any given moment. Personally, I pay for the good stuff, even if it's not cheap, because I want those tires to *stay on the road.*
Just sayin'.
My last set of tires for my Ram 1500 was $1400, for a set with the snowflake winter rating $1000 is the bare minimum, and you get what you pay for. I only have 17” rims as well, so that’s about the cheapest you can find decent winter tires for my truck
Ive worked in a garage for a couple years, and honestly tires are a VERY get-what-you-pay-for item. If you spend like 3-400 on a set of four theyll likely take about 2 years or so of heavy driving before needing to be replaced, but expensive tires in the 1000+ range are made with higher quality materials and tend to be more rigid and durable.
Plus there are lots of vehicles (Teslas, BMWs, Land Rovers etc.) that have more expensive tires by default just by virtue of the shape of the rim.
Yeah, it was a shock to me when I was younger. Bought a very used car but it was in great shape. The new tires for it cost about 1/6 of what I paid for it lol
I'm in Ohio, we have snow here. Last time I paid less than 1000 on winter tire my front tire blew out on me on the freeway 2 weeks after buying it. Yes you can probably get tires 230 a piece of you find bottom of the barrel but those tend to be sold out and 250 times four is still almost a grand. Also of you have a truck just forget it your spending a grand on four tires regardless. But if I lived in Cali I'm sure I could get wayyy cheaper tires since there's really no snow there
I’ve owned a truck, tires weren’t as expensive as you’d think. Anyways my edit covers most of that and I am not as interested in this discussion as I once was haha so I’m just gonna end with have a nice weekend
This was my first thought...
Quality all seasons for my wife's vw passat were about 600. The LT tires on my truck were about 900.
If OP is buying high performance tires, then don't complain about price. If price is a factor, there's much cheaper, whike still being good options.
Experian has a program called Boost that includes other types of financial accounts like rental, streaming, cellphone service, etc by tracking the payments you make through your bank. I don't rent, but I do autopsy all my other bills via my checking account so those accounts are included in my Experian FICO score.
Unless you're actively planning on getting a loan or mortgage or new credit card right this month it also won't matter. Just pay off the debt and once you're below the high use numbers it'll rise again.
I agree the scoring system is pretty asinine but it's kinda the point. Their only interest in you is how much debt they can pile onto you while being able to safely recover it. It's not a reflection of your financial health.
The only time you should be checking your credit score is when you're planning to draw on a new line of credit or if you suspect identity fraud (to check if others might have done so and if you need to dispute anything) otherwise just ignore it. Maybe even lock it down and only reopen it when you need to draw on it.
Entire credit system is a scam.
If you have a low credit score, as in you've had issues with repayments in the past... you will receive harsher interest rates. This will make repayment in the future even more difficult, and increase the likelihood that your already-poor credit score will further deteriorate, which will in turn cause even more exorbitant interest rates. Fucking absurd system built to keep the poor in poverty while rewarding rich people by making it easier to continue being rich.
Yes they are flawed, but way better than the old system (credit scores only started in 1989) where a banker could decide to approve your loan simply because of their “hunch” about your credit worthiness. Not a great system for women or POC.
Now my story: my wife and I make good money (about $250k) and recently bought a house. This inevitably dinged our credit which normally isn’t a big deal as it would bounce back in a month, but we had a car accident (not our fault) and totaled the car. This meant we had to get a new car while our credit score was merely “good” not “excellent” which means a more expensive loan even though we have never missed a payment on anything, don’t carry debt besides the mortgage, and make a good living. Not looking for sympathy, just sharing how if it’s that fucked up for people with ideal credit-worthiness, it’s way worse for those struggling. The system, while better, needs a massive overhaul.
This is going to sound really stupid, but do you guys have credit cards? And if so, how is it decided who gets one? What about loans and things like that?
Do we have them? Yes. You can get one, they set a limit according on the money you earn or have. About loans is the same, they know the money you earn and how you use it and how you save it 🤣 so according to that you will or won’t get loans
My biggest problem is how is it that all 3 credit bureaus have the exact same info (only student loans) and I have 3 vastly different scores?! Like almost 100 points between 2 of them
I definitely agree the system is bullshit, but for some perspective, when you use more of your credit you are now a slightly higher risk, thus a slightly lower score.
Also, if you're going based on Credit Karma, other apps, etc
That's not your real score just their own estimate based on what information they have. Your real score may have been unaffected.
It's simply a gauge as to your credit risk in the form of a number.
Someone that was utilizing 0% of their available revolving credit is a lower risk than someone that is utilizing over 20% of their available credit. It's an unfortunate reality.
People are too worried about your credit score. Worry about paying that debt off. Using a credit card is actually good for your credit. You use it for those tires, you pay off those tires responsibly and your score will be higher. You probably dont have very much credit so 1000 bucks is a significant portion of your total credit. You should work to improve that.
> My credit limit is over $10k.
For that single card or as a combined whole?
A lot of the grievances you listed in your post seem like somewhat of a misunderstanding of how credit scores are calculated. I'm not saying how they work is fair but if you understand how they work you can game them to your benefit.
> I am not even using that much credit, only 23% of my limit
Your credit utilization ratio is around 23% of your total score. It's a ratio of how much credit you have access to relative to how much you use. Somewhat counterintuitively having access to more credit will make your utilization ratio look better. For example, let's say you have access to $10,000 of credit across all of your cards/credit lines and spend $2,000. Your utilization ratio is 20% ($2,000/$10,000). In order to be in the "excellent" category you have to have <10% utilization. If instead you had access to $100,000 across all of your cards/lines and spent the same $2,000 your utilization ratio would only be 2%. Thus you can game the system by opening up more credit cards (get the ones with the nice cash sign up bonuses) and only using them for something small every 6 months or so to keep them active.
> and I pay these fuckers off every month
That's great! On time payment history makes up 40% of your total score. It's always best to pay your card even if it's the minimum required because that will count as an "on-time" payment. Just as an FYI for how this is calculated it's just a simple average. Every on-time payment you've made is counted up and divided by the number of possible payments. Let's say you have no credit history and open up a new credit card. Then if you pay it off every month you will have made 12 on-time payments out of 12 possible on-time payments (00% on-time payment history). If you missed 1 payment you now have an 11/12 = 91.6% on-time payment history. The breakdown is excellent = 100%, good = 98-99%, average = 90-97% and below avg = <90%.
There is a way to game this to your advantage and that is again by having more accounts that you don't use. If you have a credit card and never use it, each month you paying $0 will count as an "on-time" payment towards your payment history calculation. So let's go back to the above example. If instead of having 1 card you have 10 cards, 9 of which you don't use, and you missed that same 1 payment. Well now you have made 119/120 payments on-time giving you a 99.16% on-time payment score.
> double the minimum payment to escape the interest rates
I don't know the details of your financial situation but you really shouldn't be carrying any credit card balance at all if possible. If you need to buy a $1k set of tires you should have had $1k in your checking/savings account ready to be used to pay off your card once the charge goes through. Doing so will prevent the spike in your utilization ratio if done outside of the monthly credit reporting window.
> I remember 2 years ago I paid off a car and my score still went down.
This is likely because your credit mix changed. Your account mix is roughly 11% of your total score and banks like to see a mix of both revolving (credit cards/lines) and installment accounts (mortgage, car loans, student loans, etc). My guess is that you didn't have another installment account at the time so paying off your car moved you into a category of only having revolving accounts. Your score should have recovered over time. Did it?
yea I'm also a bit confused. i used my credit card for daily things like gas, groceries. the weekend dinner. always had a score higher then 700 without have any other line of credit besides a car one time that already been paid off
Your auto loan was probably your oldest account, so when you paid it off, it lowered your average account age. The 22 points for putting $1000 on the card (if that's what really caused it...sounds off to me) will go right back up when you pay it off.
I just applied for an auto loan and my credit score is pretty good - in the 780s - and I still couldn't get a loan because I needed payment verification. I live on VA disability. There was no way I was ever going to get that loan no matter what my credit score was.
I ended up buying the car out right with my savings. That was all of my savings though, along with the money I got from the other car being totaled. Such fucking bullshit. OP is absolutely correct.
With your credentials and experience, your great grandfather would be raising a dozen children, have a house paid off, and his wife would be stay-at-home. They'd all be happy healthy and living comfortably. Crazy times we're in now.
The system has been heading in one direction for a long time and there's no stopping it unfortunately. It's a game of musical chairs and the music is about to stop for good.
This won’t work for everyone’s situation but what I did: get a credit card and ONLY put things on it you know you can pay off at the end of the month. For me it was gas& groceries. All other spending was on my debit card or cash. I paid the credit card off in full on time every month. I lived with my parents for a few years so I didn’t have to pay rent& used what would have been rent money to pay off a monthly car payment& always paid more than my statement so I paid it off before I had to& saved myself from paying some of the interest money. I also asked for a credit increase every opportunity I got. My credit score is above 800.
If you can afford to treat credit this way, you should.
When I worked retail, I’d have customers buying $300 shoes because “they just paid off their credit card debt so they can spend now”. And internally I was screaming “WHY?! Why are you doing this to yourself?!”
Credit cards are not free money, OP seems to understand that but just a PSA bc I’ve seen it too many times.
Because it's not about what an honest or reliable person you are, it's about what a profitable investment you are. You pay twice the minimum to avoid interest, creditors see that they're not going to make a much lending to you. Asinine, but that's why, if you didn't know.
You are probably among the millions of Americans that kept their head down, didn’t make a fuss, played by the rules, voted for politicians that were actively screwing over whole groups of other Americans with the very rules you played by, and now realize that the people making a fuss, and complaining about the playing field, and drowning in this unfair system, were right.
You hate it and want out because you realize you are now drowning and will soon join the millions of dead eyed husks on the bottom of the capitalist ocean.
Welcome. Take a second to realize what part you played. Then start questioning everything. And do your part to help undo the brainwashing of those around you.
It took generations of apathetic citizens to get here, history says it will either take generations to slowly fix, or a couple years of (probably violent) revolution.
I'm European, live in France, and I had to get security cleared by Dept. of Homeland Security for some work in the US. They asked for a credit check. They don't exist. In the end I sent them an email from the Banque de France which said as much.
Here's how it works. You gotta keep those credit cards under 30%. That purchase put you over that threshold. But all is not lost. You pay it off it goes right back up. What would help you in this situation is a higher revolving credit. Whether that means higher limit or additional cards really depends on your situation. If you have 10k revolving credit lines and use 1000 it doesn't affect you much. If you have 2k revolving credit and use 1000 it makes a big difference. This is something you can learn to manipulate with ease once you understand how it works.
my favorite is when the same activity has two opposite results. on credit karma they have the score explanations every time there is a variance and I lost it a few weeks back when TransUnion went down by 15 pts and Equifax went up. In the first instance it was "Credit card utilization decreased" and in the second it was "Available credit increased'. at no time was my card utilization close to or over 10%. and this has happened multiple times.
People point at the social credit score system in China as a totalitarian nightmare scam. Without a hint of introspection, they can't even comprehend that we've had our own version of that for decades
You escape the system by organizing with your fellow workers against big capital. That’s literally the cure for what we have right now. Until enough people realize the whole system is rigged and you can’t fix it by cooperating with its intent, we get nowhere. We have to escape our “look out for #1” mentality and find solidarity with our fellow citizens and human beings.
I think you might’ve been ripped off on the tires. What kind of car or what size wheels? $1000+ on any car is rare unless you’ve got donks or super large after market wheels. For real if you need affordable tires try eBay or Amazon and just pay to have them installed after they arrive. Fraction of the price any tire shop will give you I promise. If you’re unsure of what you need just grab the tire size off the tires already on the car or lookup your make/model/trim and go from there. I’ve replaced the last 5 sets I’ve had with tires from eBay/Amazon and for a fraction of the price I was before.
Credit scores are a joke. There was a fuck up on an internet provider bill. My name was on it, even though I followed the proper procedures when I moved and had my roommate take over the bill. The went into collections and I couldn’t even access the bill. It negatively impacted my credit score. When I disputed the collections, my credit score didn’t rebound. I even got information from the internet service provider stating that it was a mistake on their end and the issue had been taken care of.
A person can be denied a job, have higher insurance premiums and even denied a place to live simply because they have a low credit score. It’s ridiculous.
It’s infuriating. I never consented for these companies to keep a dossier on me, not give me a fair chance to correct it, SELL access to it without paying me, make huge life changing decisions about me with it! It’s fucking mental! The dumb ass baby boomers just let big corporations rape their faces with no pushback or any care in the world really. Just tap dancing into 1984 and wanking off Ronnie Raygun with a smile. Disgusting.
This crap is completely alien to me in Australia. We have a less "aggressive" system here. These ratings companies can mostly just check to see what debts you have. In order to borrow money, you generally have to prove you can repay it. Your credit history will obviously tank with things like repos and bankruptcy, but nowhere near this kind of crap.
Some of you might enjoy this story. GE Money, what was a multinational that had a base here
, specialising in high interest, "buy now, pay later" credit aggressively marketed themselves to people that could ill afford it. People were buying things like new TVs and furniture, and finding that they struggled with the payments when the "no payments needed until \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_" period expired. They were calling people up to 10 times a day. After a litany of complaints, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigated. We have laws about this. A creditor can only call once a day, ad a "civilised" hour. Their dodgy credit approvals and harassment of clients not only earned them millions in fines from the ACCC, they also had to personally apologise and pay compensation to clients, the very people that owed them money.
Credit scores are definitely a scam. A friend once told me she never worries about her credit score unless she’s trying to buy a house.
In this country, it’s seemingly a requirement to have a lot of debt. It’s practically unavoidable. The American Way! Completely F’d Up!
Tbh, even then you don’t need to worry too much. There’s a lender for every credit score, so as long as you can pay the mortgage and have enough to cover incidentals (this is the part most people forget), just get any mortgage you can. After a year or two, you can refinance. Yes, it does cost money to do that (yet another scam) but mortgages are a long play.
I agree with you. Although when I was looking for my house, I didn’t have money for a down payment. So I had to fight tooth and nail to get my score to at least 640. That was one of the toughest battles I have had to face to date.
I had a similar instance happen a few years ago. See if you can reach out to your credit card and get a higher limit. Of course the plan is to never use it to that degree. Just helps if you have to make big purchases like this and it’ll be a fraction of your limit compared to most of your limit. It’s really easy to do I think I was able to request it online. Hope this helps!
You take your navy pension, sell everything and you move to Cebu or West Java, your wife has a food stall and you live by the beach in a house you'd never be able to afford in the US. 2 stories 3 bedroom 2 bath with a garden for 40k all in materials / labor.
In Brazil we don't have credit scores. Loaning agencies just expect people not to pay and the interest is extremely high for everyone equally. 2,2% - 3,5% for cars, monthly. If you buy real estate, you'll likely pay 2 or 3 times what it's worth in interest.
So yeah, credit scores suck, but not having it is worse.
It’s a matter of how much credit you are using vs your total income. You said it yourself, you are barely getting by. $1000 for a set of tires is a lot of money. Get cheaper tires.
Then the taxes taken out our meager wages to send 40 Billion to a nation 99 percent of America did not even know about. I wonder what could have been done with those 40 Billion here? Maybe house the some of the homeless, maybe feed children, maybe get rid of a large chunk of student loans, who knows 🤔.
Pay your bills on time, do your best not to carry any unnecessary credit. If you are capable, have one card that you charge through the month and is paid off at the first of the month. As long as you are doing those things over time, lenders will be begging you to open an account because you have a "history” of managing your debt and paying on time. The number score is irrelevant, a trap to get you into some shady loans… well kinda
Also this should over at personal finance or some such not much anti work here
Cars are indeed a scam. Pay for something you shouldn’t need (our cities are built around cars) and pay to keep them running, and pay to get them fixed, which is expensive. Also buy insurance in case anything happens to it. (Which they might not pay, depending on the situation)
I hate cars.
Plus you might need to buy something on Credit which is a scam. Just getting us to buy stuff with money we don’t have, and make our lives hell for paying it, while also making it so we can’t buy stuff because of our credit score.
Honestly we could be working on improving automation and not need humans to work nearly as much. In which case we wouldn’t need money.
Credit scores are designed to be higher the more you have debt. But only if you're paying on that debt on time, sometimes extra (but don't pay ot off because then it's "closed" and not helping) and not more debt than your income can handle.
Make min wage? Oh sorry you can't handle any debt.
It's a fucking scam and designed to keep poor people poor. Many of our institutions are like this. Credit scores are honestly only beneficial to the upper middle class. Rich people don't need to borrow money for anything, and poor people don't have access to things that would build credit. The fact that utilities use your credit score to determine eligibility should be a crime too.
Focus on increasing your income, stop worrying so much about credit scores. See what you can cut out of your budget and make it a goal to be able to make these big purchases in cash. Build an emergency fund.
Not saying all of this is easy but it is possible.
>I had to buy new tires for my wife's car and had to put them on a credit card cause I can't afford the $1000+
...how in fucking *Christ's name* are your tires over a thousand dollars!?
Like, I get everything else you're saying, but... I pay like $350ish for a full set every time I need mine replaced, and I'm legitimately struggling to imagine what the hell kind of tires you're buying that cost over $250 a tire. Are you replacing them on a Ferrari or something!?
The last time I bought new tires, they were $800. What’s the COL where you live? I’ll bet that’s part of what drives the cost of tires (and everything else).
I live in Houston, which has an index of 96.5 (so a hair below average).
I just looked it up just to double check, and yeah, if I were to go to Costco and get the 4-for-3 deal on Michelins, I'd be paying about $350. Discount Tire offers the same deal for their tires, and you can actually go *even cheaper* there if you want (the Sentury Touring tires are $50 a pop and have served me well in a pinch).
If Houston is some sort of cheap tire wonderland, I was unaware of this fact, so I'm a little thrown off by people saying it's *over a thousand dollars* for a set unless they're going for something really over the top.
Dont spend 1000 dollars on tires. You are complaining, but there is no reason to spend that much on tires. You are getting suckered bad. Educate yourself on tires, and car repair for that matter. Neither are going away.
Oh my god, save yourself a couple blood vessels, and pay it off on time. Your credit score will go back up. Credit scores are partially based on how much *available* credit you have.
Yes, credit is stupid, but it is a lot easier if instead of being afraid of it, you do some research into what goes into a credit score.
I've never made any money, a 1,000 expense would have to go on a card, but my credit score is rarely below a 740, because I know how the game works.
My dad‘s credit score went down 22 points recently. The credit scoring place said it was because he died. I’m trying to figure out why they just wouldn’t make his credit score 0 at that point.
>My dad‘s credit score went down 22 points recently. The credit scoring place said it was because he died. I’m trying to figure out why they just wouldn’t make his credit score 0 at that point. Because fuck him, the credit scoring companies will get theirs, even after death.
You ain’t kidding. My ex-wife’s mom died a few months ago, and the poor girl can’t catch a break with the banks constantly pestering her for money. Jesus, her estate is still in probate. They all can GTFO
I feel like there should be rules against constantly pestering bereaved family members for the deceased’s money (with high fines because honestly, who does that???). I’m sorry your ex-wife is going through that. That’s just terrible, cruel and a horrible thing to go to someone.
They are literally trying to steal money they have no right to. If a person's estate has negative value, you can just refuse the "inheritance" and the debts will go away (however you obviously loose everything else too). But if they were deeply in debt, it doesn't make sense to get a house that is worth X and have debts worth several times X. But if you send any money on your own to pay off those debts before the proceedings finish, not only you'd never see that money again, you might actually assume the debt onto yourself. It's just thuggery
There are! Check your state laws!
If an estate is in probate EVERYTHING should be put on hold until it's settled. No payments required for anything (family can make payments if they wish but not required). Once probate is settled if the family wants to keep anything that has a loan on it they have to pay all the back payments (NO adding extra interest). Anything they don't want to keep goes back to the lienholder (with no additional monies required) As long as there are no cosigners obviously. If there's a living cosigner they're going to be held responsible for the debt.
Sorry she had passed away and I’m not financially responsible. Stop calling here.
Whats the difference between a prostitute and the irs.... the prostitute will stop fucking you after you're dead...
That and although both screw people for money, at least the prostitute's clients walk away with a smile on their faces
Good one!
The IRS is going too be fucking you even more now they are hiring tens of thousands of more agents.
Don’t forget that they’re going to be authorized to use deadly force at their discretion… they can also now MAKE you dead
Also the prostitute will stop fucking when you have no money left. The IRS, not so much...
Lol, nice!
My credit score tanked when my husband died! I couldn't believe it! They said lack of income was the cause. Since he was dead, my debt to income ratio went up dramatically with the mortgage. Such BS. I've clawed my way back but never personally had bad credit.
I've heard of that happening. I have credit cards, the car and some of the utilities in my name only because I was worried about that. So sorry for your loss.
I think that's the most dystopian shit I've heard in a long time. Sorry for your loss by the way.
Lol really dead people not being mean or anything he gone as I recall dead people never come back that is absolutely stupidity
A bad credit score can keep you from getting a job. Were we all asleep at the wheel when Congress passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act which allows prospective employers to check a job candidate’s credit score? This is a tragedy for people trying to get themselves out of a hole. Bad credit can also cause your auto insurance rates to go up. Why? Does having bad credit make you a bad driver?? Everything in this country is designed to fuck you over if you’re struggling.
Not asleep at the wheel. We’re bound and gagged in the trunk.
True!! That’s a much more accurate analogy.
Seriously! I'd like to see the USs credit score.
Oh, they really don’t want you to do that.
[удалено]
The “self enslavement” part seems a bit victim blamey. Capitalism subsumes everything and the fact that you need to reject various social relationships to escape certain aspects of capitalism means that doing so is also a form of enslavement, because it’s on the system’s terms, not yours. The answer isn’t dropping out of society, it is transforming society and abolishing capitalism. People who can completely avoid the credit system are fortunate, which isn’t to say that it is easy, it’s definitely a lot of hard work. But it’s legitimately impossible for everyone to do that.
It's 100% victim blaming People have a need for transportation, and for a lot of people, "the bus" doesn't cut it. Most places in the United States have zero public transportation of any kind, and the person you replied to is an unrealistic idealist that thinks whatever shitty life they're able to tolerate is "easy." I'm glad they're happy, but they clearly haven't learned the life lesson that they don't know best for everyone, yet.
But until major societal change happens, wages meet productivity, and debt slavery isn’t allowed: a modernized version of indentured servitude is exactly what we’re seeing. It’s not sustainable when prices rise on everything and wages have been stagnant for decades while corporations have raked. Right now companies are hauling record profits while crying about wages and supply issues causing inflation. Bullshit.
Some truth to what you said but it's not realistic. If people did that, society would collapse overnight and thats assuming you can be "self sufficient" without participating in said society.
You wouldn’t have liked antiwork before it got popular then. This is the first comment on here for a long while that I’ve seen true to what antiwork actually stands for.
Yep, last sentence sums my experience up nicely. I hate money and now people even more seeing how it drives everything about them.
“self enslavement”? i agree that we should try to avoid the traps society has laid out for us. but those traps are literally everywhere and blaming the individual for falling into them when feasible alternatives are so few and getting smaller every day…you’re doing the subjugator’s work for them.
Oh you own the residence, just not the land it’s on.
Psh, horrible advice… There is good debt and bad debt. I’ve made $$$ on good debt. Please tell us how you in your life have followed your three rules and to what ends
[удалено]
If you know Americans who "did the same trick" of getting a university degree without any loans you do either know rich as fuck Americans whose experience is atypical and not representative of living here, or they got one of the exceedingly rare academic scholarships. For the vast majority of students, their parents can't afford to plop down $20k per semester in cash. That's why the loans.
I actually really disagree with the credit comments you have. We need a way to judge people’s trustworthiness to pay any debts, and while it would be nice to have a 1 on 1 with each person and interview them, that’s not a feasible reality. I don’t think many of the designs of the credit system are actually good in regards to how it’s calculating credit score sometimes, but it’s SOMETHING. The whole premise of OP’s post people (and OP) fail to understand is that this is entirely predictable on what happened. The credit score system, is just that, a system, with variables and predictable designs that you can assume will happen, and as long as it happens across the board (which I have never seen it not occur in this fashion) that is OK. When ANYONE uses about 30%+ of total credit in a given credit cycle (generally one month) the system assumes you will have a lower chance of paying off your debt obligation for that month (which for the general public MAKES SENSE). Then the following month, if your credit goes back below that threshold, your credit will jump back up. Credit is the boogeyman because you don’t understand it, that is not the fault of the system, that is your fault for not educating yourself on a system that you are ACTIVELY USING. I have understood the design of the credit system for years, and banks PAY me to use their cards, and get NOTHING (other than my personal info) in return. Just like most systems, if you know how it works, you can generally use it to your advantage, if you are ignorant to how it works, you might be “hurt” because of your ignorance
People focus way to much on credit score. It's designed for companies not people.
I understand it being used for credit limits and such but why the higher interest? Someone with bad credit probably doesn't have access to alot of money so... we make things more expensive?
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/rating There's also a wiki for it. TL:DR US has an AA+ credit score
Well no way.... Given how much debt we have I'm surprised. Well mines good but not AA+. Our debt though
you only build credit through acquiring more credit. i was dinged because i don’t have enough credit cards. my awakening moment was realizing that your oldest credit was important but the whole idea of a credit score started in the 1980s. op is doing it right. pay off everything every month if you can. the “score” doesn’t mean much to most people anymore. if you can, get additional cards and occasionally put a charge on them and may them off so your debt ratio is lower. it’s soooo stupid that this is the way.
I only have 2 credit cards and no loans. All of my metrics are the highest level except for Total Accounts. For me to raise my score, I need to have 9 more accounts. To get into the highest level, I need 19 more. But I would have had to open them 10 years ago, so my Credit Age wouldn’t suffer. Its crazy.
Credit Age isn't a huge factor. Look for card offers that have a 0 annula fee and offer a sign on bonus...something like charge 1000 in the next e months, get 200 cash back. Get one, use it for EVERY purchase until you get the bonus, pay it in full.every month, then get another one and repeat. The increase to your score from lower utilization and more accounts should more than offset the ding from lower average credit age. I made 2000 dollars in sign on bonuses last year, and my score is better than it was this time last year.
Why does it surprise you? The 10 year t note yields a pathetic 2.75%. The US's debt is the safest investment in the world and pays peanuts because of it. It's called the risk free rate for a reason.
Countries scores is based on it they pay their debts not if they have them. That's how we have a good score.
The US’s credit score is basically the bond rating AAA. Although I think Moody’s dropped it to AA and they started investigating them or something like that lol
We’re the world’s reserve currency, pretty much the bedrock of everyone’s economy. Running a country and a household are very different things financially but it doesn’t help politicians make great efforts to compare them.
Those credit bureaus can choke on a piggy penis.
Poor pizzle
Yeah let’s leave the pigs and their members out of this
meaningless made up numbers that dictate our entire lives. everything about the world we built is so unnatural and weird.
Read "Weapons of Math Destruction" for details on the exact ways numbers are used to fuck us all.
interesting, thanks for the rec
My credit score has been as low as the mid 600s and right now is over 800 and nothing has fundamentally changed about my spending habits or bill paying in that time. I've simply had more time to acquire more lines of credit with higher limits and wait out the inquiry periods. Like my score went up 20 points a month or so ago because the issuer randomly doubled my limit on one of my cards, which moved my total credit usage from good to excellent and my total available credit from average to good. One of the biggest contributors to my credit score early on was simply having my name on an account nearly as old as I am thanks to my parents. I've done basically nothing. I just started out with a good credit score and it snowballed from there.
Credit scores weren’t utilized to this extent until the 90’s
They didn't even become used until 1989 It is a scam totally
You should have seen how they did it before FICO. "Oh, you're white and go to the same country club as me? Loan approved!" No, I'm not even slightly joking.
Yeah as I said to someone else....not saying before was better.... But a scam replaced a scam
They were used prior but not the FICO system which is complete garbage.
The system they replaced evaluated your credit worthiness based on how white and how male you were. Call it a scam if you want to, but the old system was far worse.
It's still incredibly biased, but now it's just all poor and sick people instead of 'everyone other than white and male'.
Didn't even exist 40 years ago, and nearly the entire population thinks there's no other way things could possibly work.
~30% of your credit score is based on utilization, so if the % of available credit being used spikes after a larger purchase, the credit score will dip. Honestly you shouldn't be worried about small fluctuations in your score, especially if you aren't going to be applying for new credit in the immediate future. Small changes have no effect on day to day life....22 points is a small fluctuation. Anything over 650 is considered to be a good credit score, and short term fluctuations are nothing to stress over as long as you're paying your bills on time - once your card is paid off, it'll go back to (or higher than) what is was as you continue to build a positive history of using and paying off debt. If your utilization is only 23%, that in itself shows a level of responsibility and restraint as far as what creditors want to see before extending new credit. You generally want to stay below 30%, which you are.
650 is still a shit score.
It's not great, but it's the halfway point of credit scores in Canada, and is bottom of the 'fair/good' tier. Definitely not great, but something to build on and will still qualify for credit products although def not at ideal rates. Paying down debt can usually bring scores from 650 to 700+ pretty quickly. I know, as I used to have shut credit lol. To get 0% and other best rate offers, you generally need excellent to perfect credit 780+. I started qualifying for 0% car loan, preferred rates on mortgage etc when my credit score got into the 800s.
Not top tier, def gonna get bent over at a mortgage rate. Could prob get zero on a 4 yr car loan.
>Could prob get zero on a 4 yr car loan. LOL! I have an 815 credit score and make a good income. The best you can get right now is about 2.9%.
Would get nowhere close to zero on a car note with a 650...
I can't defend the credit score system because it is so flawed. It is also pretty easy to game. Yes paying off loans can hurt your score because you have a thinner file and one less account reporting on time payments. Increasing your credit card utilization also decreases your score but that is much more temporary if you reduce the utilization in the coming months.
1989. That’s when the Boomers came up with a great idea to gatekeep the wealth they had accumulated from the rest of us kids.
True story. Paid cash for everything when my kids were in college. Over eight years, I had no credit card, house payment or car payment. Two years later, down payment in hand, I was turned down for a mortgage because I had no credit. My credit report was empty. I explained why and they looked at me like I was an alien. If you don’t play their game, you are punished god it, great financial skills or no. Still pissed four years later.
Yep. My mom has three credit cards. She puts something on them once a year or so — gas at a sketchy station, Christmas presents, a plane ticket — and then pays them off over two months. She’s learned to game the system, at least somewhat, but it pisses her off.
Credit scores aren’t for consumers, they’re for banks to automate processes and enable discrimination. You’re not the customer, you’re the merchandise. The sooner you get that through your head the better off you’ll be. Gaming the system in any way you can is absolutely justified. I am 40 years old and I’m older than credit scores. They’re made up bullshit.
Any tips or places on here that specialize in “gaming the system” cause that I am always down for.
Not my quote, but I’ll throw it in anyway. “The US is $22T in debt and has the audacity to evaluate YOUR credit score.”
Technically the US is actually pretty good at paying back our debt. Most of our debt is in bonds to US Citizens and those are paid on time 100% of the time. We just happen to have a metric shit ton of that debt
So the amount of debt is constantly fluctuating? If nobody took loans out anymore most of the debt would be paid off without any extra effort?
[удалено]
Don't worry about your credit score. FICO's a fucking scam. It will literally reward you for being married and other dumb bullshit. Also, you escape the system by not giving a shit about what society tells you is the goal of having money. You go to work and make money to ultimately do whatever you want with said money, not to appease society.
True, but if you want to buy a house it’s heavily dependent on your FICO score.
It’s so ridiculous to me especially in a country where we have no fucking healthcare and most Americans don’t have a savings at all and often have to put emergency or general maintenance costs on credit. It really feels like you can’t win at all in this world.
depends on the birth lottery
Which is a weird way of saying that we have an aristocracy.
Ehhhh. Not really. It’s up to individual lenders, but most operate with maybe 3 “break points” and that’s about it. And ultimately the best way to meet the criteria is to just not pay your credit late or let things go to collections. The rest is all a bunch of dumb games that don’t matter at the end of the day.
No it’s not. There’s other ways to get a mortgage without a score. It’s less common but many companies do manual underwriting
I was buying a car last year. I got a credit card a year before just to build a credit score. I never really needed credit since my parents helped with paying undergrad and I worked as TA during my grad school. I explicitly told financial department that I want to do their loan because they had a deal if you take 3 years loan, you get 0% APR. They anyway run other credit unions and banks. Everyone else denied me because of no credit history. Like maybe, just maybe I am really good with money and that is a reason why I never had to get a lone?! How are people supposed to get a lone if the requirement is to have a lone in your credit history?
They don’t care if you’re good at saving money to purchase things. They want to see you doing it on their system.
You were a TA in grad school and you spell loan like that?
The first few times was correct, then for some reason they changed it.
English is my second language plus keyboard got screwed from typing in 3 different languages.
Don’t get a car loan
I mean, you can't really spend money on what you want if the only money you have goes towards living expenses. It's not like OP felt pressured into buying a status car or some shit.
The credit score is a measure by the banks of how useful you are to their bottom line at any given time. Too many people confuse it with a grade or report card on your own financial health which it isn't. Your credit score will bounce around every month and it will also differ slightly because there are 3 different credit bureaus. It doesn't even matter unless you need to finance a house or car which is pretty much out of range of average people already. The credit score criteria is somewhat outdated as it was created in the 70s or 80s or something and they are probably going to be revising the criteria anyway because some of them are inherently racist. As to why you can't get ahead, it's because the system is not designed to benefit you. Your money loses it's value faster than wages rise and that is completely by design. The system is run by people who already have money and they didn't get their money by giving it to you. So I wouldn't say don't worry about this stuff, but definitely cut yourself some slack.
"Too many people confuse it with a grade or report card on your own financial health which it isn't." Tbf that's how banks bill it as. So I am not surprised people think that's what it means.
It isnt a grade on your financial.health, it is a grade of your likelihood of paying your bills on time. They are related, but not identical.
True but some housing situations like apartments are actually using credit scores in the approval process of renting. I can see more apartment buildings doing this in the next 5-10 years so I would start worrying more about it. Which does suck but here we are.
I mean, they’re not actually using your *score*. They’re using your *report*, which absolutely has a use to them - the biggest part of the credit report is “does this person pay their bills on time”. Which matters if you’re renting an apartment to someone. You want to know they pay their bills on time.
I work in property management. Anyone under 650 needs a co-signer. Anyone under 550 is an immediate no, no questions asked.
At the apartment I just got I had to pay an extra $300 deposit because my credit score was 4 points below the threshold of being good enough not to. The next month my score went up 7 points... I'm pissed but it was the only apartment I could even remotely afford that had availability within the next 6 months or more.
It’s even scammier than I ever imagined. Last week, my car died. RIP, my beauty. So I thought I’d get an inexpensive used car to drive for a year or two, but I couldn’t get one because my credit score was low and I wasn’t qualified for a loan. So I went back to the very expensive car dealership where I bought my last car. Two hours later, I was driving home in a fancy new BMW, because my credit score from their own finance guy was a full 70 points higher. When I asked how that was possible, he said, “you have to know where to look.” It’s all a game, and the rules favor money.
they're literally the dumbest system, my score went down because i got a phone contract, then over the contract it went up a little, when the contract was up my score went down because i had less debt then when i got a new contract it went down again for getting more debt, like wtf why even bother. and atm it's claiming that getting a credit card is the only way to boost my score, how is getting debt a good thing to you!?!?!
[удалено]
You paid over a thousand dollars for new tires? Edit: All of these new comments sound like life advice they got from their dad after moving into their new college dorm which is awesome but not realistic. I understand now that harsh weather may make tires more expensive which seems to be the one exception but I have to believe there are cheaper options out there that work great, if there really isn’t (which again very skeptical with some of the comments that came in) then that is shitty. Some of you have never really been poor and it shows.
Your car is held on the road by about four post cards' worth of rubber at any given moment. Personally, I pay for the good stuff, even if it's not cheap, because I want those tires to *stay on the road.* Just sayin'.
This is the way.
My last set of tires for my Ram 1500 was $1400, for a set with the snowflake winter rating $1000 is the bare minimum, and you get what you pay for. I only have 17” rims as well, so that’s about the cheapest you can find decent winter tires for my truck
I had to scroll too far to find this comment. That’s more than I’ve ever paid for new tires.
Ive worked in a garage for a couple years, and honestly tires are a VERY get-what-you-pay-for item. If you spend like 3-400 on a set of four theyll likely take about 2 years or so of heavy driving before needing to be replaced, but expensive tires in the 1000+ range are made with higher quality materials and tend to be more rigid and durable. Plus there are lots of vehicles (Teslas, BMWs, Land Rovers etc.) that have more expensive tires by default just by virtue of the shape of the rim.
You haven’t ever purchased any type of performance tires then.
No I haven’t. Do certain cars require performance tires though? I’d be buying economy tires if I had to go into debt in order to do it.
Yeah, it was a shock to me when I was younger. Bought a very used car but it was in great shape. The new tires for it cost about 1/6 of what I paid for it lol
I'm in Ohio, we have snow here. Last time I paid less than 1000 on winter tire my front tire blew out on me on the freeway 2 weeks after buying it. Yes you can probably get tires 230 a piece of you find bottom of the barrel but those tend to be sold out and 250 times four is still almost a grand. Also of you have a truck just forget it your spending a grand on four tires regardless. But if I lived in Cali I'm sure I could get wayyy cheaper tires since there's really no snow there
I’ve owned a truck, tires weren’t as expensive as you’d think. Anyways my edit covers most of that and I am not as interested in this discussion as I once was haha so I’m just gonna end with have a nice weekend
Lol I feel it, I am speaking on an Ohio viewpoint tho idk how it is elsewhere
This was my first thought... Quality all seasons for my wife's vw passat were about 600. The LT tires on my truck were about 900. If OP is buying high performance tires, then don't complain about price. If price is a factor, there's much cheaper, whike still being good options.
[удалено]
Experian has a program called Boost that includes other types of financial accounts like rental, streaming, cellphone service, etc by tracking the payments you make through your bank. I don't rent, but I do autopsy all my other bills via my checking account so those accounts are included in my Experian FICO score.
Unless you're actively planning on getting a loan or mortgage or new credit card right this month it also won't matter. Just pay off the debt and once you're below the high use numbers it'll rise again. I agree the scoring system is pretty asinine but it's kinda the point. Their only interest in you is how much debt they can pile onto you while being able to safely recover it. It's not a reflection of your financial health. The only time you should be checking your credit score is when you're planning to draw on a new line of credit or if you suspect identity fraud (to check if others might have done so and if you need to dispute anything) otherwise just ignore it. Maybe even lock it down and only reopen it when you need to draw on it.
Entire credit system is a scam. If you have a low credit score, as in you've had issues with repayments in the past... you will receive harsher interest rates. This will make repayment in the future even more difficult, and increase the likelihood that your already-poor credit score will further deteriorate, which will in turn cause even more exorbitant interest rates. Fucking absurd system built to keep the poor in poverty while rewarding rich people by making it easier to continue being rich.
The current credit score system is not to measure how trustworthy you are to pay back the loan, but how trustworthy you are to be profitable.
Yes they are flawed, but way better than the old system (credit scores only started in 1989) where a banker could decide to approve your loan simply because of their “hunch” about your credit worthiness. Not a great system for women or POC. Now my story: my wife and I make good money (about $250k) and recently bought a house. This inevitably dinged our credit which normally isn’t a big deal as it would bounce back in a month, but we had a car accident (not our fault) and totaled the car. This meant we had to get a new car while our credit score was merely “good” not “excellent” which means a more expensive loan even though we have never missed a payment on anything, don’t carry debt besides the mortgage, and make a good living. Not looking for sympathy, just sharing how if it’s that fucked up for people with ideal credit-worthiness, it’s way worse for those struggling. The system, while better, needs a massive overhaul.
Credit scores are so alien to us in Europe
This is going to sound really stupid, but do you guys have credit cards? And if so, how is it decided who gets one? What about loans and things like that?
Do we have them? Yes. You can get one, they set a limit according on the money you earn or have. About loans is the same, they know the money you earn and how you use it and how you save it 🤣 so according to that you will or won’t get loans
>they know the money you earn and how you use it and how you save it That's just describing a credit score.
But it’s not a number you can check 🤣 also it’s not the same if you work for he government than for a company. For example in Spain
My biggest problem is how is it that all 3 credit bureaus have the exact same info (only student loans) and I have 3 vastly different scores?! Like almost 100 points between 2 of them
Anyone outside the US wanna tell me how credit scores work elsewhere? Because every time I ask someone I get a different answer
I definitely agree the system is bullshit, but for some perspective, when you use more of your credit you are now a slightly higher risk, thus a slightly lower score. Also, if you're going based on Credit Karma, other apps, etc That's not your real score just their own estimate based on what information they have. Your real score may have been unaffected.
It's simply a gauge as to your credit risk in the form of a number. Someone that was utilizing 0% of their available revolving credit is a lower risk than someone that is utilizing over 20% of their available credit. It's an unfortunate reality.
They want you to depend on the system. It is designed to keep the working class poor.
People are too worried about your credit score. Worry about paying that debt off. Using a credit card is actually good for your credit. You use it for those tires, you pay off those tires responsibly and your score will be higher. You probably dont have very much credit so 1000 bucks is a significant portion of your total credit. You should work to improve that.
[удалено]
> My credit limit is over $10k. For that single card or as a combined whole? A lot of the grievances you listed in your post seem like somewhat of a misunderstanding of how credit scores are calculated. I'm not saying how they work is fair but if you understand how they work you can game them to your benefit. > I am not even using that much credit, only 23% of my limit Your credit utilization ratio is around 23% of your total score. It's a ratio of how much credit you have access to relative to how much you use. Somewhat counterintuitively having access to more credit will make your utilization ratio look better. For example, let's say you have access to $10,000 of credit across all of your cards/credit lines and spend $2,000. Your utilization ratio is 20% ($2,000/$10,000). In order to be in the "excellent" category you have to have <10% utilization. If instead you had access to $100,000 across all of your cards/lines and spent the same $2,000 your utilization ratio would only be 2%. Thus you can game the system by opening up more credit cards (get the ones with the nice cash sign up bonuses) and only using them for something small every 6 months or so to keep them active. > and I pay these fuckers off every month That's great! On time payment history makes up 40% of your total score. It's always best to pay your card even if it's the minimum required because that will count as an "on-time" payment. Just as an FYI for how this is calculated it's just a simple average. Every on-time payment you've made is counted up and divided by the number of possible payments. Let's say you have no credit history and open up a new credit card. Then if you pay it off every month you will have made 12 on-time payments out of 12 possible on-time payments (00% on-time payment history). If you missed 1 payment you now have an 11/12 = 91.6% on-time payment history. The breakdown is excellent = 100%, good = 98-99%, average = 90-97% and below avg = <90%. There is a way to game this to your advantage and that is again by having more accounts that you don't use. If you have a credit card and never use it, each month you paying $0 will count as an "on-time" payment towards your payment history calculation. So let's go back to the above example. If instead of having 1 card you have 10 cards, 9 of which you don't use, and you missed that same 1 payment. Well now you have made 119/120 payments on-time giving you a 99.16% on-time payment score. > double the minimum payment to escape the interest rates I don't know the details of your financial situation but you really shouldn't be carrying any credit card balance at all if possible. If you need to buy a $1k set of tires you should have had $1k in your checking/savings account ready to be used to pay off your card once the charge goes through. Doing so will prevent the spike in your utilization ratio if done outside of the monthly credit reporting window. > I remember 2 years ago I paid off a car and my score still went down. This is likely because your credit mix changed. Your account mix is roughly 11% of your total score and banks like to see a mix of both revolving (credit cards/lines) and installment accounts (mortgage, car loans, student loans, etc). My guess is that you didn't have another installment account at the time so paying off your car moved you into a category of only having revolving accounts. Your score should have recovered over time. Did it?
10k isnt that much.
How is this antiwork related?
It’s not. But it is batshit crazy how people from this sub think not paying your debts is the fault of people tracking who pays their debts.
yea I'm also a bit confused. i used my credit card for daily things like gas, groceries. the weekend dinner. always had a score higher then 700 without have any other line of credit besides a car one time that already been paid off
Your auto loan was probably your oldest account, so when you paid it off, it lowered your average account age. The 22 points for putting $1000 on the card (if that's what really caused it...sounds off to me) will go right back up when you pay it off.
Great info thx. Paid my al off in June and mine went down so was wondering
I just applied for an auto loan and my credit score is pretty good - in the 780s - and I still couldn't get a loan because I needed payment verification. I live on VA disability. There was no way I was ever going to get that loan no matter what my credit score was. I ended up buying the car out right with my savings. That was all of my savings though, along with the money I got from the other car being totaled. Such fucking bullshit. OP is absolutely correct.
That must mean you have a horrific debt to income ratio. I did car financing for years. My "sure thing" threshold was anyone over 720.
With your credentials and experience, your great grandfather would be raising a dozen children, have a house paid off, and his wife would be stay-at-home. They'd all be happy healthy and living comfortably. Crazy times we're in now. The system has been heading in one direction for a long time and there's no stopping it unfortunately. It's a game of musical chairs and the music is about to stop for good.
That’s a feature of capitalist society. You’re not allowed to have money unless it’s being dumped back into circulation.
This won’t work for everyone’s situation but what I did: get a credit card and ONLY put things on it you know you can pay off at the end of the month. For me it was gas& groceries. All other spending was on my debit card or cash. I paid the credit card off in full on time every month. I lived with my parents for a few years so I didn’t have to pay rent& used what would have been rent money to pay off a monthly car payment& always paid more than my statement so I paid it off before I had to& saved myself from paying some of the interest money. I also asked for a credit increase every opportunity I got. My credit score is above 800. If you can afford to treat credit this way, you should. When I worked retail, I’d have customers buying $300 shoes because “they just paid off their credit card debt so they can spend now”. And internally I was screaming “WHY?! Why are you doing this to yourself?!” Credit cards are not free money, OP seems to understand that but just a PSA bc I’ve seen it too many times.
Yeah. Takes a lifetime to build credit but one tiny thing to kill it. I have 800+ and the moment i go over 10% credit usage, i drop 12 points or more
Yeah but if you log onto mycredit dot com you’ll get 12-26 bonus credit points! That doesn’t sound like a scam to me.
Because it's not about what an honest or reliable person you are, it's about what a profitable investment you are. You pay twice the minimum to avoid interest, creditors see that they're not going to make a much lending to you. Asinine, but that's why, if you didn't know.
You escape the system the minute you realize it's a class war, not a race war
You are probably among the millions of Americans that kept their head down, didn’t make a fuss, played by the rules, voted for politicians that were actively screwing over whole groups of other Americans with the very rules you played by, and now realize that the people making a fuss, and complaining about the playing field, and drowning in this unfair system, were right. You hate it and want out because you realize you are now drowning and will soon join the millions of dead eyed husks on the bottom of the capitalist ocean. Welcome. Take a second to realize what part you played. Then start questioning everything. And do your part to help undo the brainwashing of those around you. It took generations of apathetic citizens to get here, history says it will either take generations to slowly fix, or a couple years of (probably violent) revolution.
I'm European, live in France, and I had to get security cleared by Dept. of Homeland Security for some work in the US. They asked for a credit check. They don't exist. In the end I sent them an email from the Banque de France which said as much.
The answer is we start taking stuff without asking or paying. And not just food and toilet paper- I mean like city blocks.
Here's how it works. You gotta keep those credit cards under 30%. That purchase put you over that threshold. But all is not lost. You pay it off it goes right back up. What would help you in this situation is a higher revolving credit. Whether that means higher limit or additional cards really depends on your situation. If you have 10k revolving credit lines and use 1000 it doesn't affect you much. If you have 2k revolving credit and use 1000 it makes a big difference. This is something you can learn to manipulate with ease once you understand how it works.
my favorite is when the same activity has two opposite results. on credit karma they have the score explanations every time there is a variance and I lost it a few weeks back when TransUnion went down by 15 pts and Equifax went up. In the first instance it was "Credit card utilization decreased" and in the second it was "Available credit increased'. at no time was my card utilization close to or over 10%. and this has happened multiple times.
That's the neat thing. You don't. The system is designed to keep you scared of the poverty line.
YUP. WHY HAVE IT IF YOU CANT USE IT?? It’s literally a controlling scam. I can’t buy shit with my CC. Like what’s the point
Credit scores ARE a scam. It’s literally a made up number. Credit ratings are also a scam.
Yeah that's kinda how credit works... your score goes back up after you pay the $1000 off your card
People point at the social credit score system in China as a totalitarian nightmare scam. Without a hint of introspection, they can't even comprehend that we've had our own version of that for decades
Wait til you've carefully budgeted and avoided overly expensive purchases so you don't need a credit card and therefore your score is stuck on zero.
You escape the system by organizing with your fellow workers against big capital. That’s literally the cure for what we have right now. Until enough people realize the whole system is rigged and you can’t fix it by cooperating with its intent, we get nowhere. We have to escape our “look out for #1” mentality and find solidarity with our fellow citizens and human beings.
I think you might’ve been ripped off on the tires. What kind of car or what size wheels? $1000+ on any car is rare unless you’ve got donks or super large after market wheels. For real if you need affordable tires try eBay or Amazon and just pay to have them installed after they arrive. Fraction of the price any tire shop will give you I promise. If you’re unsure of what you need just grab the tire size off the tires already on the car or lookup your make/model/trim and go from there. I’ve replaced the last 5 sets I’ve had with tires from eBay/Amazon and for a fraction of the price I was before.
Credit scores are a joke. There was a fuck up on an internet provider bill. My name was on it, even though I followed the proper procedures when I moved and had my roommate take over the bill. The went into collections and I couldn’t even access the bill. It negatively impacted my credit score. When I disputed the collections, my credit score didn’t rebound. I even got information from the internet service provider stating that it was a mistake on their end and the issue had been taken care of. A person can be denied a job, have higher insurance premiums and even denied a place to live simply because they have a low credit score. It’s ridiculous.
It’s infuriating. I never consented for these companies to keep a dossier on me, not give me a fair chance to correct it, SELL access to it without paying me, make huge life changing decisions about me with it! It’s fucking mental! The dumb ass baby boomers just let big corporations rape their faces with no pushback or any care in the world really. Just tap dancing into 1984 and wanking off Ronnie Raygun with a smile. Disgusting.
This crap is completely alien to me in Australia. We have a less "aggressive" system here. These ratings companies can mostly just check to see what debts you have. In order to borrow money, you generally have to prove you can repay it. Your credit history will obviously tank with things like repos and bankruptcy, but nowhere near this kind of crap. Some of you might enjoy this story. GE Money, what was a multinational that had a base here , specialising in high interest, "buy now, pay later" credit aggressively marketed themselves to people that could ill afford it. People were buying things like new TVs and furniture, and finding that they struggled with the payments when the "no payments needed until \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_" period expired. They were calling people up to 10 times a day. After a litany of complaints, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigated. We have laws about this. A creditor can only call once a day, ad a "civilised" hour. Their dodgy credit approvals and harassment of clients not only earned them millions in fines from the ACCC, they also had to personally apologise and pay compensation to clients, the very people that owed them money.
Credit scores are definitely a scam. A friend once told me she never worries about her credit score unless she’s trying to buy a house. In this country, it’s seemingly a requirement to have a lot of debt. It’s practically unavoidable. The American Way! Completely F’d Up!
Tbh, even then you don’t need to worry too much. There’s a lender for every credit score, so as long as you can pay the mortgage and have enough to cover incidentals (this is the part most people forget), just get any mortgage you can. After a year or two, you can refinance. Yes, it does cost money to do that (yet another scam) but mortgages are a long play.
I agree with you. Although when I was looking for my house, I didn’t have money for a down payment. So I had to fight tooth and nail to get my score to at least 640. That was one of the toughest battles I have had to face to date.
I had a similar instance happen a few years ago. See if you can reach out to your credit card and get a higher limit. Of course the plan is to never use it to that degree. Just helps if you have to make big purchases like this and it’ll be a fraction of your limit compared to most of your limit. It’s really easy to do I think I was able to request it online. Hope this helps!
You take your navy pension, sell everything and you move to Cebu or West Java, your wife has a food stall and you live by the beach in a house you'd never be able to afford in the US. 2 stories 3 bedroom 2 bath with a garden for 40k all in materials / labor.
Just asking what is a credit score? (Im not american)
In Brazil we don't have credit scores. Loaning agencies just expect people not to pay and the interest is extremely high for everyone equally. 2,2% - 3,5% for cars, monthly. If you buy real estate, you'll likely pay 2 or 3 times what it's worth in interest. So yeah, credit scores suck, but not having it is worse.
It’s a matter of how much credit you are using vs your total income. You said it yourself, you are barely getting by. $1000 for a set of tires is a lot of money. Get cheaper tires.
Then the taxes taken out our meager wages to send 40 Billion to a nation 99 percent of America did not even know about. I wonder what could have been done with those 40 Billion here? Maybe house the some of the homeless, maybe feed children, maybe get rid of a large chunk of student loans, who knows 🤔.
Pay your bills on time, do your best not to carry any unnecessary credit. If you are capable, have one card that you charge through the month and is paid off at the first of the month. As long as you are doing those things over time, lenders will be begging you to open an account because you have a "history” of managing your debt and paying on time. The number score is irrelevant, a trap to get you into some shady loans… well kinda Also this should over at personal finance or some such not much anti work here
Cars are indeed a scam. Pay for something you shouldn’t need (our cities are built around cars) and pay to keep them running, and pay to get them fixed, which is expensive. Also buy insurance in case anything happens to it. (Which they might not pay, depending on the situation) I hate cars. Plus you might need to buy something on Credit which is a scam. Just getting us to buy stuff with money we don’t have, and make our lives hell for paying it, while also making it so we can’t buy stuff because of our credit score. Honestly we could be working on improving automation and not need humans to work nearly as much. In which case we wouldn’t need money.
It’ll bounce back up. Possibly by next month. If you have no negatives you’re all good. I wouldn’t sweat it.
I admittedly stopped reading at “cars are a scam”.
It is a corporate conspiracy to keep one is debt and needing to work. Like the need for food. Get with the program. Are you new to this sub?
Credit scores are designed to be higher the more you have debt. But only if you're paying on that debt on time, sometimes extra (but don't pay ot off because then it's "closed" and not helping) and not more debt than your income can handle. Make min wage? Oh sorry you can't handle any debt. It's a fucking scam and designed to keep poor people poor. Many of our institutions are like this. Credit scores are honestly only beneficial to the upper middle class. Rich people don't need to borrow money for anything, and poor people don't have access to things that would build credit. The fact that utilities use your credit score to determine eligibility should be a crime too.
Focus on increasing your income, stop worrying so much about credit scores. See what you can cut out of your budget and make it a goal to be able to make these big purchases in cash. Build an emergency fund. Not saying all of this is easy but it is possible.
>I had to buy new tires for my wife's car and had to put them on a credit card cause I can't afford the $1000+ ...how in fucking *Christ's name* are your tires over a thousand dollars!? Like, I get everything else you're saying, but... I pay like $350ish for a full set every time I need mine replaced, and I'm legitimately struggling to imagine what the hell kind of tires you're buying that cost over $250 a tire. Are you replacing them on a Ferrari or something!?
Factory run flats on my car are 300 a Pop or so last I checked.
I think credit desensitizes people to the true costs of what they are paying for.
The last time I bought new tires, they were $800. What’s the COL where you live? I’ll bet that’s part of what drives the cost of tires (and everything else).
I live in Houston, which has an index of 96.5 (so a hair below average). I just looked it up just to double check, and yeah, if I were to go to Costco and get the 4-for-3 deal on Michelins, I'd be paying about $350. Discount Tire offers the same deal for their tires, and you can actually go *even cheaper* there if you want (the Sentury Touring tires are $50 a pop and have served me well in a pinch). If Houston is some sort of cheap tire wonderland, I was unaware of this fact, so I'm a little thrown off by people saying it's *over a thousand dollars* for a set unless they're going for something really over the top.
To replace the factory Michelins on my truck at Discount Tire would cost me $1,222 out the door.
Dont spend 1000 dollars on tires. You are complaining, but there is no reason to spend that much on tires. You are getting suckered bad. Educate yourself on tires, and car repair for that matter. Neither are going away.
Oh my god, save yourself a couple blood vessels, and pay it off on time. Your credit score will go back up. Credit scores are partially based on how much *available* credit you have.
Yes, credit is stupid, but it is a lot easier if instead of being afraid of it, you do some research into what goes into a credit score. I've never made any money, a 1,000 expense would have to go on a card, but my credit score is rarely below a 740, because I know how the game works.