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Comment by spiritplumber | Hacker News Reader

I don't have a US credit score because I never had a credit card in my life and always bought everything with money I knew I had (including my little home).

That never fails to completely throw financial institutions for a loop; they can't conceptualize it.

Ironically it means that if I was to apply for a credit card it would be very difficult to get it.

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>That never fails to completely throw financial institutions for a loop; they can't conceptualize it.

They can conceptualize it. No one has come up with an automated way to adequately predict someone's ability to repay a loan other than the current credit reporting system that greatly factors in one's history of repaying previous loans. If you have a better idea, it's probably worth a lot of money.

>Ironically it means that if I was to apply for a credit card it would be very difficult to get it.

It wouldn't be very difficult to get. You would just have to submit proof of your assets and possibly history of expenses.

That's the thing though: someone who has bought their car and their home in cash isn't a high-risk borrower, rather, he or she is someone who is able to save in order to do that, so he or she should be considered a low-risk borrower. That's simple logic, really.

Depends on the card you apply for. I didn’t have a credit score until my mid 20s because I avoided them like the plague and bought only with money I had. Now I still do the latter, but I get rewards for using a credit card for purchases. My very first credit card had a very small limit ($250-500, I think), and I only used it for groceries.

Not to say everybody needs a credit card/score, but they do have advantages if you’re responsible with them. :)

In other countries at least, there are score-builder credit cards that come with relatively high interest (and presumably capped credit limits) to allow high-risk borrowers such as yourself to build up their credit history. Once you use one of these for a while and pay it off every month, you would start building up a credit history/credit score that would allow you access to better lending deals.

> always bought everything with money I knew I had

You can do this with a credit card, fwiw, but i'm sure i'm not the first to tell you this.

I don't think we should glorify debt avoidance, and avoidance of financial tools (like CCards) as the only, or best, way to be financial responsible. It works for some people, but that doesn't mean its for everyone or should be a goal.

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