Everyone with 700+ fico score.

[vayub4]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous thats why those people stay broke and don't move up in the economy food chain and complain about making minimum wage at McDonalds or something and ask the government to intrude and raise there wages to $15/hr for something a monkey can do. What's really the problem is that most people don't make a monthly budget. If they did, they could find maybe $50 /month to start a savings fund for that rainy day. Heck even I at 19 just made a budget with my fiance and I only plan to put 10% of my measily check (about $60) into a separate savings account. But yes I acknowledge that SOME people on disability truly are disabled. But that still doesn't excuse them to rack up CC debt and cry when they are getting interest charges out the wahoo or when a lender reduces there CL because there just making minimum payments and seeing no progress. Also people don't have to know the 'credit game' becaude if they just made a simple budget they could reallocate some money, no matter how little it was, and start that budget. Heck start a garage sale or something geez. But sorry to say, but having kids is preventable and if you don't have a quality job to sustain a modest living than you should wait to have kids. Nothing wrong with that at all. This is also what my fiance and I are doing, we are waiting til after college and have worked a steady job for a years and made a savings and baby fund to support ourselves. Sorry to sound a little rude, but I just had to give this a little rant and vent a little.

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Tony 7497... Spoken like a true very very young man, without enough life experiences to understand complex matters.  Don't confuse intellect with wisdom.   I'd love to read your blog in 20 years from now and see if you have the same views.  You talk about people who make minimum wage or struggling financially having a garage sale, are we to assume people making minimum wage even have a garage which is normally attached to a home, it's ridiculously outrageous.  It doesn't sound rude, life experiences just haven't caught up with you yet.  No one escapes life's lesson, no one.

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+1! It is so easy to criticize people who got it bad when one has everything going great for them. Hopefully with time he'll learn

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

A lot of AA happens on here because community members often seek credit in excess. They get much more than they actually need, scare a few lenders into AA, and then spread horror stories. The truth is AA is pretty rare for normal people who don't use credit limits to keep score.

Wanting three of the cards you describe strikes me as an example of such excess.

High CLs, low APRs, BT fees, Cash advance fees...they only matter if you don't have an emergency fund. A credit union CC is not a substitute for an emergency fund.

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Totally disagree with you.  What is the downside risk of having three 30K limits with 6% interest?  None.  You should have a well balanced portfolio of low rate no fee cards in case life happens beyond or emergency fund and then a few rewards cards.

If you want to smack people down for excess, how about a 35K Lowes limit, 30K Barney's?  Those are useless high limits, but they do help people keep utilization down.

Don't assume that your plan is everyone else's plan.  It's not.

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The downside is that high CLs on cards with mediocre rewards can crowd out (or trigger AA) on some awesome rewards cards if issuers think a person has too much credit available relative to income or assets.

Credit unions may be less likely to take adverse action, but it still happens. I could argue that there's not much upside to having three 30K cards, since you could wake up tomorrow and see three CLD or APR increase notices in your inbox. Issuer policies and risk criteria can change quickly. There's liquid, accessible savings - and then there's everything else.

For people who don't have enough in liquid savings...if you lose your job or have some other emergency, don't go into tens of thousands of dollars of debt. Have a plan to swallow your pride and cut expenses, take on a tenant or move in with a relative, etc...

And I certainly agree high CL store cards are useless in most cases.

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The whole point is that you would NEVER carry a balance on a rewards card, so you don't really need any rewards card that is more than one month's net spending ability!  Why on earth if you spend 5K a month on your credit cards would you want a 30K credit limit on that card?

I would rather see:

Rewards Card #1 = 10K limit

Rewards Card #2 = 10K limit

Rewards Card #3 = 10K limit

CU Low Rate Card = 30K limit

CU Low Rate Card = 30K limit

than see high rate rewards cards with annual fees:

Rewards Card #1 = 20K

Rewards Card #2 = 20K

Rewards Card #3 = 20K

Rewards Card #4 = 20K

[Anonymous]

What about Altra Federal Credit Union??

This is the message I received from a loan officer when I asked about the score needed for their different tired and what bureau they pull.

"We have five different credit tiers, and we use TransUnion.

A – 715 and higher

B – 680 to 714

C – 650 to 679

D – 620 – 649

E – 619 and below


Thank you!"

[12njoy]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yes I'm sorry if I came off as saying this is a one size fits all model. But in most situations people go into financial ruin because they have not prepared themselves with a proper savings, retirement (401k stocks etc) or overextended themselves credit wise with a ridiculous mortgage and car note that they qualified for. Just because your qualified for a 500k house doesn't mean you should sign that loan agreement. Also to respond to the job loss and medical condition statement I would say that one should have proper savings to pay 5-6 months bills. Yes there are some expensive medical cases and conditions that are more long term and understandable and I acknowledge that. 

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Thanks for understanding.  

[bdhu2001]

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@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous thats why those people stay broke and don't move up in the economy food chain and complain about making minimum wage at McDonalds or something and ask the government to intrude and raise there wages to $15/hr for something a monkey can do. What's really the problem is that most people don't make a monthly budget. If they did, they could find maybe $50 /month to start a savings fund for that rainy day. Heck even I at 19 just made a budget with my fiance and I only plan to put 10% of my measily check (about $60) into a separate savings account. But yes I acknowledge that SOME people on disability truly are disabled. But that still doesn't excuse them to rack up CC debt and cry when they are getting interest charges out the wahoo or when a lender reduces there CL because there just making minimum payments and seeing no progress. Also people don't have to know the 'credit game' becaude if they just made a simple budget they could reallocate some money, no matter how little it was, and start that budget. Heck start a garage sale or something geez. But sorry to say, but having kids is preventable and if you don't have a quality job to sustain a modest living than you should wait to have kids. Nothing wrong with that at all. This is also what my fiance and I are doing, we are waiting til after college and have worked a steady job for a years and made a savings and baby fund to support ourselves. Sorry to sound a little rude, but I just had to give this a little rant and vent a little.

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Wow!!! Judging others much? Note that the person said they used their emergency savings for 6 months. But in either case, it doesn't matter.  The person is just trying to give other advice in case their rainy day funds don't last through the rainy days & they have to resort to credit usage.

As a person who always pays my bills, but had Discover cut my limit from 5k to $500, I agree with the poster.  Even though I figured out why Discover reduced my limit and have very good or great FICO scores, Discover has never been willing to raise my limit back.  Which means I can rarely use their card because any amount would use a significant portion of the limit.

My issue was not having knowledge of the credit game.  I used balance transfers to take advantage of lower or 0% interest, which made utilization high on a couple of cards. When I learned about the credit game, I paid off my cards and now pay in full by due date. My problem wasn't lack of education, I have a masters.  It wasn't lack of savings, I used saving to pay off the cards.  Nor was I a minimum wage worker.

Knowledge is power and until people found sites like this or research became easy on the Internet, the power was in the hands of the banks.  It still is, but now we can use the experience and knowledge of others to level the playing field.

[takeshi74]

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@Anonymous wrote:

These so-called prime banks will cut you down when your most vulnerable.

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Prime is not relevant to banks or cards despite how much people misuse the term here.  Prime is relevant to the borrower.

Do not simply assume that credit unions will not take adverse action.  Credit unions are not all identical and can and do vary in their risk tolerances.

As stated above, credit is not a replacement for a liquid emergency reserve.  I know it's much easier to say that one should have one that it is to acutally build one but do not rely solely on credit for emergencies.

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

The whole point is that you would NEVER carry a balance on a rewards card, so you don't really need any rewards card that is more than one month's net spending ability!  Why on earth if you spend 5K a month on your credit cards would you want a 30K credit limit on that card?

I would rather see: 

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People vary.  Don't conflate "I would rather see" with what others would rather see.  Additionally, two things may not be mutually exclusive as your example assumes.  My 30K card sees very little (more than an order of magnitude less than $5K) but regular usage.  I don't have to micromanage reovlving utilization as a result.  It works for me.  It may not work for the next.  Each needs to sort out such things for the individual.

[Anonymous]

I see there's been a lot of activity on here overnight. I have nothing more to add, and see no need to repeat myself. I think my posts on the first two pages of this thread are clear enough.

[Anonymous]

There is some sound advice here if you have 0 relationships with credit unions you should get one. Not even shopping for credit cards a relationship with a credit union get you better interest rates on auto loans personal loans often competing with balance transfer rates. remember is that an installment looks better on a report than a revolving account all things being equal

[Anonymous]

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@creditguy wrote:

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@beautifulblaquepearl wrote:

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@creditguy wrote:

Golden 1 is great but limited geographically. With that I will add Navy Federal I know it's limited too but it's available to a good chunk of the country in one way or another. They are very generous and easy to deal with, nothing but good things to say. Ironically I never heard of them before I came to this forum. 

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Me either. Along with PenFed & Nasa, NFCU is on my list for 2016.

Edited to add: Maybe 2017

Why 2017? If you don't mind me asking. Your scores are beyond excellent for NFCU, gotta get on the gravy train there in case it dries up. 

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I don't need any new credit right now and I want to let some of my inquiries age.  What gravy train? I'm sure there will be another one.

[Anonymous]

I understand the logic here but I dont find it necessary. If you're already in a crapload of debt and continuously have high util (not advisable) when AA happens then maybe you need this cushion but if util is generally low and you already have diversity in your profile one lender deciding to cut you off shouldnt make a huge difference.

It can certainly happen to any of us but as CarefulBuilder14 stated its rare for most. Id think the odds of every lender taking AA would be even less likely.