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I am 20 years old... Review my profile?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

I am 20 years old... Review my profile?

Hello all! I have posted once before but I figured I would give an update on my profile. Please comment what you think and any other advice/tips/questions you may have!

Here it goes:
Began building credit 12/2014, I am currently a student.
1st Card: Discover IT Student $500 now $4000 (2014)
2nd Card: Bank of America Cash Rewards $1200 now $1700 (2015)
3rd: Citi Double Cash $3300 now $4400 (2016)
4th: Amex BCE $4000 now $10000 on a 61 day CLI (2016)
5th: Chase Sapphire Preferred $8700 (2016)

Total credit available: $28800

No loans (I know, it would help, but I have no need at the time)

Fico Score reported by Discover & BOA: 759

No baddies/derogs/missed/lates ever.

Util. Ranges from 1-3%, I pay my bills down through the month

What do you think?
Message 1 of 8
7 REPLIES 7
myjourney
Super Contributor

Re: I am 20 years old... Review my profile?

I think you're doing and absolute tremendous job of building and maintaining your credit 

And DBL kudo for not getting a loan because you don't need one 

The day will come when you need a loan and at that point you'll also get a great rate as well to go with it

Before you app think...
Have you done your research of the CC?
Does it fit your spending?
Do you have a plan for the bonus w/o going into debt?
Can you afford the AF?
Do you know the cards benefits? Is it worth the HP?
Message 2 of 8
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I am 20 years old... Review my profile?

It's a great profile for sure.  My only two questions:

 

(1)  Are you certain that as a student you get adequate benefit from the CSP -- given that you have to pay $95 a year for it?  It's valuable for the signup bonus (especially given that the annual fee is waived in the first year) but after that it's hard for me to imagine a student who would really benefit given the hefty AF.  Downgrading to the regular Chase Saphirre might be a better choice.  The CSP has a pretty lame rewards package as I remember.  Opening and closing other travel cards might be a better option: the CSR and the Citi Premiere are incredibly attractive right now (for the first year).  (Though with the CSR you probably would need to wait until early Feb to open it to make sure you can double dip on the airline credit.)

 

Those are just some tentative thoughts.  As long as you are carefully doing the math (once a year) I suppose that's all that matters.

 

(2)  You write: "No loans (I know, it would help, but I have no need at the time)"

 

Are you sure that makes sense?  By using the Share Secure Loan technique you'd add 30-35 points to all three scores with no hard pull.  You could then renew that in 4.9 years if you still didn't have a "real" installment loan.  Hard to imagaine any downside from that.  It seems a bit like a guy seeing $35 on the sidewalk but not picking it up he doesn't need it.  Yeah, I suppose.  But it's free, so why not?

 

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Adding-an-installment-loan-the-Share-Secu...

 

Those are just a couple thoughts.  In general you are in amazing shape for a 20 year old.

Message 3 of 8
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I am 20 years old... Review my profile?

In response to how I find value in the CSP I actually referred two family members to it giving me 10,000 UR points each! That essentially waives the annual fee for a total of three years in my eyes, so when the time comes I will evaluate the $95 annual fee (which will be right when I am about done in college)!
Message 4 of 8
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I am 20 years old... Review my profile?


@Anonymous wrote:
In response to how I find value in the CSP I actually referred two family members to it giving me 10,000 UR points each! That essentially waives the annual fee for a total of three years in my eyes, so when the time comes I will evaluate the $95 annual fee (which will be right when I am about done in college)!

The important thing to me is that you are carefully thinking these things through, weighing pros and cons, taking steps to mitigate disadvantages, making a short, nedium and long term plan; etc.  These general habits are priceless and are far more important than coming to any particular conclusion.

 

That said, just remember that the additional 20k UR points you got (while very smart) is something that happened in the past.  It doesn't change the best steps for the future.  Here's an analogy that may help.  Suppose you were talking to a friend who was paying $130 a month for some huge package at Comcast.  You asked if he was sure it made sense moving forward to keep paying that -- did he really use all those channels and so forth?

 

He responds by saying: yup, good point, I had thought about that, but I just made some very smart investment decisions and I got a windfall of $5000.  That should cover my cable bill for the next three years.

 

You'd feel like saying: great, glad you made those smart decisions.  Sweet that you have that extra 5k.  But you could keep the 5k AND lower your future Comcast bills if you want.  Getting the extra 5k does not entail continuing to pay for it if you don't need it.

 

Of course, in your case, if you anticipate continuing to make 10k per year via further CSP referrals, that is a different story.  Those referral bonuses probably are contingent on you actually having a CSP of your own (though I can't say) and had you downgraded to just a regular CS (with no annual fee) those future referral bonuses might be an option.

 

Anyway, I am sure you will do what is best for you.  Good luck!

Message 5 of 8
Revelate
Moderator Emeritus

Re: I am 20 years old... Review my profile?

Considering you can sort the lack of loan for less than a yuppie foodstamp (I couldn't afford anything at Starbucks with how much I paid in interest on my own share secured loan last year) I will simply suggest if you care about your FICO score, you should do pull the trick; you're simply leaving points on the table and thereby harming your credit in not doing so.

 

Also some algorithms notably auto industry options may look even more favorably on having one than the baseline FICO's we're all familiar with.




        
Message 6 of 8
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I am 20 years old... Review my profile?

Besides the loan issue, any other adviceon my profile?
Message 7 of 8
Revelate
Moderator Emeritus

Re: I am 20 years old... Review my profile?


@Anonymous wrote:
Besides the loan issue, any other adviceon my profile?

Not from a FICO perspective; you have 5 revolvers which I personally consider to be the minimum with how some bureaus calculate FICO 8 anyway; that plus an open pretty utilization installment loan is as good a profile as you can setup credit wise other than more age on the file of course which will occur naturally.




        
Message 8 of 8
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