Building credit from scratch with new ssn

[4yearsin]

So my wife is about to get her ssn number for first time,

as she is new to the country and finally after a year of

filing paperwork, She is being issued her ssn.

 She is not aware on how credit and finances work in

the US, so that part is on me and to teach her

about making good credit decisions.

So the plan for the first 2 years.

Discover secured- 2000cl

BoA  secured  -      1000cl

FNBO  secured-     1000cl

Self 24mo loan-    $48 x 24mo

Goal is to apply for 4 Prime cards when

self loan is around 23mo and under 8% utilz

once prime cards are approved at 2 year point.

Then garden and applying for 1-2 cards every 12months.

I also have the option of adding AU,

maybe adding 3-4 AU cards with 15+ year history and High limits with no balance.

I just feel that AU method really doesnt work like it used to, and that some banks im sure don't even apply the AU towards your Scoring.

Since there's no rush, I just want to see how the profile builds individually and making all the right decisions.

 Is this the right way or will i just spend alot more time that I could save if I just added the AU, maybe not needing the secured cards and going straight to there unsecured version?

[CYBERSAM]

Easiest way is to add her to couple of your CCs as AU and make sure she uses her cards.

This way Fico score should generate and after 6mo to a year she should be able to get decent cards, provided she has income!

I did that for someone and worked much better then secure cards etc...

[RopeIsGettingShorter]

There's like a while science to this stuff. I don't understand most of what you wrote but I'm still learning. 

[FireMedic1]

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@RopeIsGettingShorter wrote:

There's like a while science to this stuff. I don't understand most of what you wrote but I'm still learning. 

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You got the plan right. 3 cards and a loan to get started. You probably can do it in a lot less than 2 yrs. Apply around every 3 months in between. You can get the first card and the loan at once to get started. Disco will graduate quicker. And theres no problem with getting a Cap1 card unsecured to get a revolving account on their file. Doesnt have to be all secured. You want credit accounts reporting. Name of bank and credit line amount doesn't mean a thing to FICO. Its whats reported monthly.

So the plan for the first 2 years.

Discover secured- 2000cl

BoA secured - 1000cl

FNBO secured- 1000cl

Self 24mo loan- $48 x 24mo

[tebtengri]

I added my wife as an authorized user on my Capital One card and my First Premier stinker card without needing SSN.

Hopefully when she gets her ITIN/SSN I can add her to all my accounts as eell as sponsor her an NFCU account and get her a secured card and a couple of pledge loans for credit mix.

[FireMedic1]

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@tebtengri wrote:

I added my wife as an authorized user on my Capital One card and my First Premier stinker card without needing SSN.

Hopefully when she gets her ITIN/SSN I can add her to all my accounts as eell as sponsor her an NFCU account and get her a secured card and a couple of pledge loans for credit mix.

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Ah more info. Get the SSL loan. One 1 loan is needed. More loans doesnt do any good. Once you get a vehicle. Drop the SSL.

[Dayvan_Cowbody]

Neither my brother or my wife have any credit history so i put them as AU on a couple of my cards.

It's been a couple years since I did that and even with a sky high utilization on my Amex (90%) my wife's score and credit profile were good enough for PayPal to give her a $4K mastercard a couple months ago and Capitol One has been regularly mailing her card offers for the last few months.

Now that I've paid that Amex down to a more reasonable amount and we paid off a couple thousand in plane tickets on her PayPal card her score is probably better than mine (we haven't checked hers in a while but I still have a CO from 2017 weighing me down and my overall utilization is still over 60% which I'm paying down fairly quickly now).

My brother just sent me his info... the CapOne card that he is an AU on was 97% Util when it was last reported (it's under 50% now) but his FICO is still 688.  His score was at 705 in August of 2021 and utilization was over 79% then so I'm expecting the score to go up around there once the current balance reports.   Also, I never even gave him the actual card or card number so using it doesn't appear to be a requirement for scoring.

My point:  AUs do work and the better your credit is the better the AU's credit will be.

[CYBERSAM]

Just a reminder that as of mid last year Fico algorithm for AU was changed to combat many randomly adding users to boost their scores!

New Fico score requires AU to use their own credit card and show balance for Fico Score to calculate!

Balance dosn't need to be much as long as updates the credit bureaus with some activity on their individual card.

I have seen as much as 90 Fico points be effected by this!

[GZG]

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@4yearsin wrote:

Self 24mo loan-    $48 x 24mo

You should be able to pay down a Penfed SSL to 9% just like you can a NFCU SSL, so that should be preferred to a self loan.

[Dayvan_Cowbody]

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@CYBERSAM wrote:

Just a reminder that as of mid last year Fico algorithm for AU was changed to combat many randomly adding users to boost their scores!

New Fico score requires AU to use their own credit card and show balance for Fico Score to calculate!

Balance dosn't need to be much as long as updates the credit bureaus with some activity on their individual card.

I have seen as much as 90 Fico points be effected by this!

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That's interesting to know... I wonder if that means that AU accounts created before that algorithm change still calculate as before?  For the card my wife is an AU on we had the monthly cable bill pay on that and she would use it for the occasional uber, but my brother's card never left my house and I never used that number for anything.  I'll have to keep this change in mind and probably set something up to auto-pay on my brother's card if anything changes.