I was going to go to bed, but I checked my credit score on Credit Karma just now. In my April 20th post about credit scores, I said that DW had a credit score approaching "deity," while mine was close to 100 points lower than hers. Her score was so high, I'd think that folks would PAY her to borrow from them.
When we went to the US, we got a new car for her. This put two new inquiries onto my account; that should've been just one, but I'm not worried about the inquiries. Inquiries are "negative" in effect on credit ratings. We also borrowed a healthy amount, increasing our debt-to-income ratio, which is another "negative."
So, what was the result of adding two negatives to my credit record? The score went up to nearly DW's level after nearly six months of just sitting where it had been.
As I said in the comments to the April post: I just don't understand credit scores or how they work.
Credit Score update
July 13th, 2013 at 08:50 pm
July 14th, 2013 at 12:09 am 1373760590
I do know that for years I was very conservative about credit cards and only held 2 credit cards, and that a few years ago when i got the credit card rewards/bonus bug and accumulated 7 or 8 different cards, my credit score rose. Of course, that can be attributed to a higher line of credit with relatively low overall use of it.
July 14th, 2013 at 01:09 pm 1373807348
My experience, having only gotten one car loan in my life (for a dealer discount/incentive) was that it increased our already high FICO scores substantially. I mean, we only had 10-20 point to eek out. But, that was even though we paid it off within a few days. I do know a variety of different kinds of credit is good for your score and that the the benefits of a car loan likely FAR outweigh any inquiries. BUT, is a car loan "100 points FICO increase worthy?" Apparently it is?
July 14th, 2013 at 06:55 pm 1373828106
I fell in to the old "you can only borrow if you don't need it" trap, so I borrowed money and paid it back even if I didn't need it to "build a credit history." It was very helpful when I was younger, but now, DW and I are thinking about just paying off the car, even though the money is at 1.19%. I told DW that we can make more than that in Vanguard, but we're both of the "better to just get it out of the way" mindset. I know the QE ball will be dropping soon, so it's just as likely that I'll "lose" some of the earnings soon, anyway.