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Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Old Sep 20th 2017, 12:57 pm
  #16  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Personally, I only have 3 credit cards as "credit". My credit score is perfectly respectable. I use 2 of them, 1 to pay the cellphone bill as it will pay for the phones to be replaced if they are lost or stolen ( I have 3 kids and have made a succesful claim). The other gets used a bit each month. Both get paid off completely each month.

Those concerned about over-spending on credit cards- I have webapp/phoneapp that I use called YNAB. I've been using it for about 8 years and I love it. You have to budget (allocate) all your money each month to various categories, then as you spend it/pay bill s the category amount goes down as each transaction gets downloaded into the software. Here's the good thing - if you spend $100 on groceries on your credit card, then the amount is deducted from that category and the money you used gets allocated to your credit card bill. So, when the credit card statement comes through, you know you have money to pay it all off.
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 1:05 pm
  #17  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Originally Posted by robin1234
Well I agree, but I do understand why people might continue to finance a car when younger. But surely, when retirement gets closer, it's perfectly obvious that it would make sense to stop using credit!
I am thinking that if I stat seeing visions of the Pearly Gates I will be maxing out my Credit before I go.
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 1:59 pm
  #18  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Originally Posted by Pulaski
But what would happen to their credit score?
Exactly! Fortunately I have the luxury of not giving a flying **** about my credit score. I know that the powers that be probably think I'm indigent, judging from the kind of junk mail that I get. Suits me fine!
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 2:12 pm
  #19  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Originally Posted by Pulaski
Which is why I am commuting in a car that is almost 15 years old and has been to the moon and is nearly half way back. It does the job, and I have no car payment.
My wife's car is 23 years old! It only had 60,000 miles on it when she bought it just as a stop-gap, but we figured, after it ran well for those couple of months, let's just run it until it quits. That was three years ago.

Our mechanic says it probably only has another year or two, but as you pointed out - that's a year or two without a car payment.

I am with those of you who say, don't finance cars.
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 2:15 pm
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Originally Posted by carcajou
My wife's car is 23 years old! It only had 60,000 miles on it when she bought it just as a stop-gap, but we figured, .....
So it's old, but fairly low mileage. .... Do you know how far away the moon is?
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 2:18 pm
  #21  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

It's up to about 100,000 miles now. Odd to think she's driven it nearly as much in the last three years, as others drove it, in its first 20 years!
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 2:18 pm
  #22  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Originally Posted by carcajou
My wife's car is 23 years old! It only had 60,000 miles on it when she bought it just as a stop-gap, but we figured, after it ran well for those couple of months, let's just run it until it quits. That was three years ago.

Our mechanic says it probably only has another year or two, but as you pointed out - that's a year or two without a car payment.

I am with those of you who say, don't finance cars.
Well, that's all very well but for a lot of people on this forum, they arrive and need 2 cars straight away. Some of us might manage to pay cash for a 2nd hand car but will struggle to do this for 2 cars.

If you don't have a car payment right now, then I'd be putting the money aside for when the current car needs to be replaced. Then you still won't need to finance it with credit. I remember reading that from ?Dave Ramsey or Suzie Orman years ago and thinking what great advice it was.
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 2:28 pm
  #23  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Been lucky here with an excellent credit rating and didn't have to finance a new car as it was 0% interest. Didn't make sense and still doesn't to take the money from an interest/dividend account to pay for it outright when a small monthly payment will do the same thing and the money will still make money. But then I've never been a luxury car person and have since 1992 only purchased cars that are $20,000 or less.
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 2:29 pm
  #24  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Originally Posted by Pulaski
As PF and Tom said, you don't exist, and indeed cannot exist (for US credit score purposes) until you have an SSN.

I recommend International Autosource - I used them myself and while they might sound a bit "odd", in fact their bread and butter business is selling cars to US military personnel, so they are entirely legit and totally above board.
If you decide to go that way l also would recommend IAS, we recently picked up 2 cars from them and the service was flawless.
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Old Sep 20th 2017, 3:08 pm
  #25  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

I took out my first ever car loan last year. Bought a 1 year old car (30% cheaper than new) and decided instead of paying cash, took out a 3 year car loan at 1.65% and invested the money. So far that money has returned just over 13%. My car payments are as much as my mortgage, I would not like to have these ongoing.

This would be one reason to take a car loan. This is the same reason I stopped making extra payments on my mortgage and investing the money instead.

Not sure if this is a smart move, but so far has paid off. If savings interest rates were 5% to 6%, I don't think I would gamble so much.

I would not feel safe driving a 15 year old car, too many crazy driver out there.
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Old Sep 21st 2017, 1:48 am
  #26  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

We have taken loans on the last two cars we purchased. Although we had the money to cover the cost, it wasn't all liquid and immediately available. In both cases we got very low interest rates (3% and 4%) and paid off the balance within a few months. The cost was trivial and it was convenient at the time. The loans also boosted our already pretty good credit scores :-)
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Old Sep 21st 2017, 12:33 pm
  #27  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Originally Posted by Rete
Been lucky here with an excellent credit rating and didn't have to finance a new car as it was 0% interest. Didn't make sense and still doesn't to take the money from an interest/dividend account to pay for it outright when a small monthly payment will do the same thing and the money will still make money. But then I've never been a luxury car person and have since 1992 only purchased cars that are $20,000 or less.
Up till now we've had a $14,000 ceiling on new cars, but it looks like we will have to raise it to $18,000 if/when we buy a new car! We went into a Honda dealer planning to buy a Fit, they started at $17,000 I think it was. Anyway we were so turned off by their sleazy high pressure techniques ("what will it take to get you to drive out of here today in your new Honda Fit?" etc.) that we politely left with no new car, and we agreed that we can probably get several more years out of our present nine year old car...
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Old Sep 21st 2017, 1:13 pm
  #28  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

Originally Posted by robin1234
Up till now we've had a $14,000 ceiling on new cars, but it looks like we will have to raise it to $18,000 if/when we buy a new car! We went into a Honda dealer planning to buy a Fit, they started at $17,000 I think it was. Anyway we were so turned off by their sleazy high pressure techniques ("what will it take to get you to drive out of here today in your new Honda Fit?" etc.) that we politely left with no new car, and we agreed that we can probably get several more years out of our present nine year old car...
Somewhere around $16,000 should get you a Honda Fit, Ford Focus, Toyota Corolla especially now that you can get good deals on "old" 2017 models.
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Old Sep 21st 2017, 1:37 pm
  #29  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

You could buy a year old Hyundai Accent with 4 years/18k of warranty for $10k or a year old Fiesta with 2 years/9k of warranty for the same price.
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Old Sep 21st 2017, 6:20 pm
  #30  
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Default Re: Excellent credit rating, what will happen to it in the states?

There is some kind of car website where you do all the haggling online and then just go in to get the car and sign the paperwork. carmax? carpros? I'm not sure.
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