@Anonymous wrote:
Just graduated high school. No prior credit card history, AU accounts, or loans.
Currently making about $50k a year.
What's the usual time frame for getting a credit card with say a $10k limit? (Provided one stays on top of things and proactively tries to grow their credit lines).
@Anonymous welcome and congratulations on deciding to educate yourself about credit rather than find out later the hard way.
may I recommend that you read the Scoring Primer linked at the top of my signature so that you can understand how these things work?
meanwhile you can grow your credit just as quickly as anyone else, your age is irrelevant to the score. How long does it take to get a $10,000 credit card? Well that's going to depend on your income, your DTI, your spend, your credit score, and other things. It could happen in a year under the right circumstances.
but you don't want to just go out and grab a bunch of credit cards that you're gonna regret later. You do need to go out and get some, so you can establish a foundation for an age buffer for your future credit endeavors though.
do you have any military affiliation you or immediate family? If so that open some additional doors. I would highly recommend opening a SSL and some good platinum credit union credit cards.
While they may not offer much in the way of rewards, they will serve you well in the future if you need to carry a balance or if you need a cheap or no fee cash advance or balance transfer. These would be no AF cards you would keep for life to help with your average ages.
you may have to start off with secured cards, but you do this at credit unions where they will graduate and then you can typically either graduate to a platinum or transfer to a platinum.
I would try to grab three from three different credit unions along with an SSL. Then I would do nothing for a year. Then you could apply for an American Express and Discover. You'll probably get a decent credit line from American Express and 61 days later you can ask for a 3XCLI.
That will put you in range of that 10KCL and with decent regular spend that American Express will break 10K in no time.
I would try to time it where I got the credit cards after the 15th of the month and then get the SSL in the first half of the following month. The reason being most credit unions will let you use the same hard pull for 30 days.
And if you do what I'm telling you, when the cards turn one year old you will get a score boost. At the same time your SSL will still be open and at optimal Score for you to fire on the American Express, Discover and maybe one other.
then I would lock my reports and open no further Accounts for years unless it was necessary for a car loan. You have to let your credit age.
good luck. come back and ask questions and there's a bunch of good threads in post 7 of the Primer that will lead you to good secured cards, credit unions, and even prequalification links. All kinds of good info.
