inquisitive40

Ok, now that my SSN is in the pipeline, I am wondering about getting a credit card to start credit here. As I posted a while back my wife has had her credit screwed up by her divorce a few years ago and is only jsut starting to climb back inot reasonable credit BUT not enough to get an unsecured credit card yet. My question is, with a secured credit card from our bank (Washington Mutual) will both of out credit climb with the transactions on this card and more important will her bad credit only still affect her and the fact we are sharing a credit card affect me negatively credit wise?
Anyone know about this? I would think that only the joint negative credit she had on her old accounts would will apply to her because none of the bad credit was on any joint account that we share? Would this be correct?

I read this link about joint credit cards etc here http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=259959
Any info greatly appreciated.

Patrick

Rete

Only going from personal experience here if the card is your name only, there is not an issue about her credit history. But if you add her name to your card, then her history follows you on this card.

Get a job first, wait a few months, apply for a local store card, i.e. target, walmart, costco, gas station, in your name only, keep a small balance on it for 90 days always paying the minimum or over but not the full amount for six months and you then will have established credit and a work history and will not need a secured credit card at exorbitant interest rates.

Rete

psychobabbler1

Rita is correct (per usual!). Her credit hx becomes your hx when a joint account is applied for. If you want to help boost her rating, do as Rita suggested, wait and get a card in your name only, add charges and pay them off for several months (6 is recommended to establish a good hx) and establish a good record. Your good record will help with her problematic one, though be aware that it won't be able to totally erase/negate a problem with late/no payments.

Dawn

inquisitive40

So the question then also has to be, if I add my name to her bank account allowing me to write checks and use the visa part of her debit card, will that also affect my credit? I am thinking the answer is no cause her bank account is fine (as is all her current credit, it is just late payments from nearly a year and a half ago and then some debts from her previous marriage which are about 4 years ago) and as far as I am aware they don't do credit reporting on checking accounts?

The reason we wanted to get my credit started as soon as possible is due to our desire to buy a home (we are presently renting for the last 2.5 yrs).

By all the advise we have gotten from friends (and even her bank) that the only way to get my wife's credit back into good standing is by a secured credit card, she has been told due to the fact she has no present bills which are reporting a good history for her (we have no loans etc, with the exception of a student loan and so no one is reporting credit for her) that the secured credit card is the quickest way to get things back in order for her.

Patrick

ian-mstm

This is true only to a point. A good credit history is made up of a number of factors, but about 65% is based on three things: your ability to pay bills on time, the length of your credit history, and your debit to credit ratio - that is, how much credit you've used as opposed to how much credit you have available. If you owe $3,000 and have a limit of $6000, that's not as good as if you owe $3,000 and have a limit of $9,000. The trick though, is that your limit is determined by unsecured credit. Secured credit is useless in this respect since it's always linked to the cash you already have. Unsecured credit is the charm. You can't do much about the length of your credit history, but gasoline cards, even one with a limit of $100 will help kickstart your credit history.

Secure/insecure credit aside, just paying the bills on time will help her credit rating over time... and it will take time. There are no quick credit fixes.


I'm surprised to hear this... her student loan should be on her credit history. Student loans are one of the best available credit builders since (for FAFSA loans, at least) the US government is fronting the money (i.e. the US government finds her credit worthy).

Ian

inquisitive40

Yes her student loan does report (sorry for the misunderstanding), and over the last 6 months her score has come up by 100 points on MyFICO.

Our bills are all paid and up to date, what we were going to do was get a secured card in my name and pay cell phone and utility bills in my name and so show a payment history for me and with a secured card that is reporting, it should start showing up credit pretty quickly.

Patrick

ian-mstm

Excellent!


If I understand correctly, you're going to pay your utility bill with your credit card (online, I assume), and then make payments on the card! This should work. One other thing I should mention is that your credit rating is also based on how many and how often you apply for credit cards so, while you're eager to get moving on this, too many new cards at once isn't a good idea. Slow and steady... that's the ticket.

Ian

AndysGirl

Here's what we did. I had a Target credit card. When my husband got his SSN , I added him as a joint account holder. He then learned that his American Express Blue Card from England could be transferred over here. We just bought a car about 2 weeks ago, and those 2 credit cards were major pluses on his credit score. Now he has the car loan to add to his score.
Note: I have bad credit, thanks to people who will give any college kid a credit card, but its slowly climbing up. Without my husbands credit, I dont think we would have got this car. So I dont think my bad credit reflected on his credit for this situation.

inquisitive40

Well we screwed up a Target card a few years back due to a fire we had and hadn't the finances to keep up with the payments.

I will have to find if our bank will actually report their secured credit cards to the credit agencies before taking that route, if not I will probably give it a couple of months and then try some store cards.

Thanks
Patrick

scrubbedexpat099

Do a search on your Secured Credit card supplier, some of them are sharks and best avoided.

inquisitive40

It will be our normal bank that we are going to get a secured card with.
Patrick

scrubbedexpat099

That should be OK.