Establishing credit for the first time.

[Anonymous]

I’m a thirty something who moved to America from the UK 7 years ago. I need to establish credit over the next 12 months as my score on credit karma is only 634. 

• Which credit cards should I be looking for? 
• am I right in assuming I shouldn’t use more than 30% of the credit available?
• Can I just pay my cable tv every month or does the amount I spend on them to be different each month?
• any other advice?

thanks for reading.

[Anonymous]

Hi Stussy81fl, welcome!

Which credit card you should be looking at depends on what is important to you, travel rewards, cashback rewards, no rewards, good balance transfer APRs, etc. 

Staying under 30% utilization is good, but many would say that only letting under 10% report is even better, and not letting all your cards report a balance. I think leaving 2/3 of your cards reporting a zero balance is best. But you want to let balances post to show you're using them and paying them off.

You can just pay your cable bill each month. That's a good way to show you're using the card and paying it each month. The same amount doesn't really make a difference as far as I know.

My advice would be to take advantage of the wealth of information on this forum. There are a lot of amazing people that contribute. 

[Anonymous]

I just want two credit cards that I can use to pay for two automatic bills (cable\water), in order to raise my credit profile so I can get a mortgage. Im not looking for travel rewards etc.

hope that answers the question.

thanks for responding. 

[Anonymous]

 Capital One Platinum might be a good card to start with. I'm not sure without knowing your FICO 8 scores though. Credit Karma gives the Vantage score I believe, so it is different than the FICO 8 which is what Cap1 would use. There are other good one too, depending on your FICO 8. 

[Anonymous]

Do I need to pay $59 to get that info? 

FICO® Score 3B Report

[Anonymous]

get a secured card for $300. put your Netflix account on it and set up auto pay. Your low utilization will boost your scores and you’ll start getting good payment history. Alittle over a year ago I had no credit and now I have a FICO score of 715.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, that’s my intention. Was going to get two cards

put cable tv on one card and water on the other card

[Anonymous]

BabyFaceNelson (awesome name, BTW!) has good advice on starting with a secured card. Once you have a card, your scores will jump.

I read on another thread that CreditCheckTotal is offering 3 reports and FICO 8 scores for a $1 trial. That's a good way to get your true FICO scores. 

[Anonymous]

Bear in mind that you need the following on your credit reports in order to generate a FICO score:

• At least one account opened for six months or more, and
• At least one account that has been reported to the credit bureau within the past six months

https://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/questions/requirement-for-fico-score.aspx

It sounds like our OP may not have met both criteria yet (though perhaps he has).  When he has met both, the $1 trial at Credit Check Total would be the cheapest way of getting his FICO 8 scores.

[Anonymous]

ok so a quick update on starting to build credit.

I have been approved for a Platinum Credit Card from Capital One. Yippee!

https://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/platinum/

But one credit card isnt enough, I was told to get two and use them for 12 months to get my cerdit score up!!  So which one??  It needs to be one that reports to all 3 bureaus.  Can the second credit card also come from Capital One or should they not be the same?  The Capital One Secured Mastercard looks like a good option.

https://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/secured-mastercard/

My credit score is 634.