Building Credit Score
One of the things that I can honestly say I never worry about before is having credit. I tried very hard to avoid it as much as possible because I don’t like the stress of having debts. I saw how much it stressed out my mother which in turn stressed me out as well. Unfortunately my parents didn’t have a lot of choices so they had to resort to having debts when they hit a rough spot financially. There’s 5 of us that they needed to feed and it was only my father who was working so it was very tight financially. I guess that’s where I learned to be wary of incurring debts. So when I came here in the US, imagine my shock when I was told by the hubby that I have to have credit cards in order to have credit history and to build a good credit score for future use. Huh? It’s a total opposite from what I’ve been used to but what can I do? I now live in a place where credit history can have a great impact in your life.
Needless to say, I was persuaded to get credit cards in my name. My first attempt was get a store credit card. Guess what? I was denied because I didn’t have any credit history. Ha! So I had to apply for the regular credit card to get a head start on this ‘insane’ journey. A few years after I had my first card, my credit history was put in test. We applied for a mortgage. Lo and behold, we got approved quite easily it was rather scary. Apparently, hubby’s and my credit score are both good so we got pre-approved by all the banks we tried. I guess the free credit score site was correct when it gave me an above average rating, eh? Honestly, I didn’t expect much when we checked my score since it’s only been a couple of years since I started building my credit but I guess the time frame didn’t have that big of an effect to the score itself as long as dues are paid on time.
Needless to say, I was persuaded to get credit cards in my name. My first attempt was get a store credit card. Guess what? I was denied because I didn’t have any credit history. Ha! So I had to apply for the regular credit card to get a head start on this ‘insane’ journey. A few years after I had my first card, my credit history was put in test. We applied for a mortgage. Lo and behold, we got approved quite easily it was rather scary. Apparently, hubby’s and my credit score are both good so we got pre-approved by all the banks we tried. I guess the free credit score site was correct when it gave me an above average rating, eh? Honestly, I didn’t expect much when we checked my score since it’s only been a couple of years since I started building my credit but I guess the time frame didn’t have that big of an effect to the score itself as long as dues are paid on time.
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