Do you actively manage your credit score?

[RedAngie]

No. But I do check several times a year. I've never seen a problem or had the need to contact them about anything. Yes, my score seems to fluctuate 10 to 25 points each time. As long as the score remains in the same ballpark I'm satisfied. Credit cards are not always paid off in full each month.

 

[bethbuchall]

Nope. I monitor it, though, and it seems to go up and down by 10-20 points occasionally. The down seems to be if I made a large purchase, but I do pay my cards off every month. I just don't care--bought a house already, and my car is paid for.

Same here. Ours took a bit of a tumble when we put the tuition/housing costs for the semester on one card recently, but it will pop back up. We pay off all our cards every month, but we might as well get the rewards instead of mailing a check for things like that. The only other thing that hurts us is that we don't carry car loans and the mortgage is paid off. I'm not about to add to my credit limits or take out loans just to play games with ratios, etc.

 

[DLgal]

This kind of thing always cracks me up. These people are wasting their time. If you have a score over 750, you are treated the same as someone with an 850 score. 750+ is the "excellent" category. There are no secret bonuses for being higher than that.

My score, FWIW, is 825. It hovered around 775 for years and years. Know how I bumped it up? With a CAR LOAN in the amount of $25,000. My score shot up to 825 within 3 months. My credit card balances are the same every month because we charge everything and pay it off monthly, so the reporting agencies always see the same general picture of our debt to credit ratio.

Since we don't have a mortgage or student loans, my score was being kept below 800 due to "lack of loan installment payment history."

 

[mnrose]

This kind of thing always cracks me up. These people are wasting their time. If you have a score over 750, you are treated the same as someone with an 850 score. 750+ is the "excellent" category. There are no secret bonuses for being higher than that.

My score, FWIW, is 825. It hovered around 775 for years and years. Know how I bumped it up? With a CAR LOAN in the amount of $25,000. My score shot up to 825 within 3 months. My credit card balances are the same every month because we charge everything and pay it off monthly, so the reporting agencies always see the same general picture of our debt to credit ratio.

Since we don't have a mortgage or student loans, my score was being kept below 800 due to "lack of loan installment payment history."

Same point. I have hadn't installment debt of any kind for well over 13 years. Nor am I interested in "getting some" JUST to bump my already excellent score even higher. It's ridiculous to get dinged for paying your bills off in full each month (and some months, that's credit card debt well into the multiple thousands of dollars because I charge things like my annual insurance bill, prepaid vacations, etc to my card).

 

[QueenIsabella]

Sounds like a complete waste of time. As others have said, once you make it to "Excellent", no need to work to go further. The only exception I can think of is people who want to clean up a mediocre report in order to finance a big purchase. Beyond that, it's not worth fussing about.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

I subscribe to a monitoring service (very cheap through my job) just because I worry about identity theft, that can ruin your life. It notifies me if there's any sort of strange activity.

 

[North of Mouse]

Have never done anything to endanger an excellent score, so never even think about it.

 

[ronandannette]

No. But I do check several times a year. I've never seen a problem or had the need to contact them about anything. Yes, my score seems to fluctuate 10 to 25 points each time. As long as the score remains in the same ballpark I'm satisfied. Credit cards are not always paid off in full each month.

Why not Red? Does your personal secretary forget to mail the cheques? I kid. I did want to send a shout-out to the only fellow DIS'er in existence who sometimes carries a balance.

 

[low-key]

heck no, if I see it by accident I keep hitting my head with a rock until I get a concussion and forget everything

 

[disneychrista]

My score, as most peoples do, fluctuates month to month. But as long as it stays above 800 I'm okay with it.

 

[Minnesota!]

Yes. I can check weekly through one of my credit cards. We had some sketch activity on a few accounts over the years so I am overly cautious...

 

[RedAngie]

Why not Red? Does your personal secretary forget to mail the cheques? I kid. I did want to send a shout-out to the only fellow DIS'er in existence who sometimes carries a balance.

I suppose we're the only two brave enough to admit it.

Shocker. Sometimes, like after a vacation, there just isn't enough money in my standard account to pay off the full balance. And I'm too lazy to use another account or transfer money around. Yeah, I'm paying more in CC interest than I'm earning elsewhere. No big deal. Maybe 100 bucks a year.

I do have it set up for the automatic withdrawal of the minimum amount due in case I forget to make a payment.

 

[MamaBelle4]

I suppose we're the only two brave enough to admit it.

I admit it too. We live paycheck to paycheck. I'm just glad I have credit available, lol.

When DH was injured and out of work from 2012-2013, we lived on my paycheck, a whopping $10/hour. We managed to keep our home. Everything, literally everything else suffered.

It's amazing how it only takes a couple of months to destroy your credit entirely, but years to build it back up. We've been desperately trying to recover, but it's slow going. We don't manage, but we do monitor. We are working on paying off our cards one at a time.

 

[georgina]

Our credit scores are good and we don't actively manage them. People with poor credit, however, often end up paying more for car insurance.

 

[ronandannette]

I admit it too. We live paycheck to paycheck. I'm just glad I have credit available, lol.

When DH was injured and out of work from 2012-2013, we lived on my paycheck, a whopping $10/hour. We managed to keep our home. Everything, literally everything else suffered.

It's amazing how it only takes a couple of months to destroy your credit entirely, but years to build it back up. We've been desperately trying to recover, but it's slow going. We don't manage, but we do monitor. We are working on paying off our cards one at a time.

Hang in there. We had to completely start over (and I mean from less-than-zero) 10 years ago. My DH was already 55 then and his career has not and will not entirely recover. We do the best we can now with what we have, thank God for our provision and we are at peace.

 

[DietCoke18]

Eh, no. I have credit karma and they send me updates. I don’t always read them thou.

 

[Minnesota!]

I check it monthly. I've had accounts hacked/stolen, so I am a little obsessive about it.

 

[Callie]

I just check mine often to make sure its good. Having a very nice one helped a lot when applying for my mortgage and having my PMI be super low.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I understand why people get interested in doing that--credit score is everything these days. I am currently trying to cultivate a better score (screwed it up a year and a half ago, mostly by opening a new credit card that messed up my debt vs. income ratio and carrying a little extra debt). I have since corrected that mistake and my score jumped up by 100 points the following month, but I'm still 40 points shy of my previous excellent score. I'm hoping to get back over 800 again but divorce is expensive!

 

[L&Lfan]

Just got a letter today saying my credit card limit has been extended to 7k.