@Anonymous wrote:Hi everyone. Im 21 yo moved to States about a year ago from Russia. Recently started working on my credit score (in Russia we don't have such a thing to worry about, so it's all new to me). Apparently in America you better have solid CS and history to get best offers for cars/credit cards and even renting apartment. Well, thats something new to me, but I hope with your help I'll figure all this out pretty quick.
So, recently I applied and received my first BofA secured credit card with $1000 credit line. People I know reommended to apply for other CC in couple of months. So there's a lot of info on the internet about how to build your credit but all of it seems pretty general. So my question is what I should and what shouldn't do to build my credit? What I need to avoid? Are there any "tricks" that aren't obvious but have good impact on CS?
Im currently working with monthly income about $1600. Don't pay rent. But I do pay for all family bills (roughly $600-$650 a month). Have a few thousand dollars savings.
I would highly appreciate any information/advice.
Thank you
-O
Welcome to the USA and to these forums, which are just about the best resources for managing credit cards in particular and credit in general! (Just don't get too overwhelmed by the folks who have tons of credit cards with gigantic limits - they make me go good gosh almighty, too! 
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You've already taken one of the most important steps by getting a good secured card from Bank of America with a good starting credit line - that particular card, with a history of responsible use, has a good possibility for being upgraded to an unsecured card. CreditGuyInDixie's post has a good general roadmap for you to follow; I also echo the recommendations for you to get your free credit reports from the three major bureaus (TransUnion, Equifax and Experian) once you've built up some payment history with your secured BoA card. There will be some variations among the three FICO scores, which is entirely normal. Also, going forward, be aware that not every lender will pull the same bureau when making a credit decision, so you'll see a different number of inquiries on your report depending on which bureau you're looking at.
One thing that I need to caution you on is the so-called Shopping Cart Trick, which you'll see numerous discussions about here and elsewhere. Basically, if you don't already know about this, it's a way to get store/retail credit cards quickly and without incurring hard inquiries on your credit reports by accepting "pre-approved" offers from Comenity Bank, which issues many store credit cards, at checkout time on those particular store websites. It can be useful, but you need to be VERY careful to only apply for cards that you actually intend to use regularly from stores that you plan to shop at regularly. Comenity is known to take adverse action ("AA") against cardholders who have a LOT of their cards with very high limits, if they don't use those cards regulary and/or run up too-high balances, by either reducing credit lines and/or closing cards entirely, so be careful!
Also, avoid "subprime" lenders like Credit One, Surge, Premier, etc. if at all possible. They'll hit you with all sorts of fees and deduct those fees from your credit lines, which usually aren't very good to begin with. Stay away from them and only get bank cards from reputable lenders like BoA, Capital One, Discover, etc.