Building credit for Duplex

[Joel Martinez]

Hello everyone,

Joel Martinez here. I am 17 years old and very interested in becoming financially free at a young age. I have been putting quite a bit of energy into learning credit. I know the specifics of credit, such as “billing cycle”, “report date”, and “due date”. What’s a good first credit card to start off with? What should I do with college university? Any actions plans for a 17 year old Ambitious, Curious, Promoting senior in high school?

[Malcomb Stapel]

@Joel Martinez do you have any credit cards/ accounts yet? Realize that you are playing the long game here and your credit strategy will need to adapt and grow later on. But here are a few things you could start now to get ahead. 

1. Know your current score (Experian will show you for free) 

2. Take out a small signature loan from a bank. My first was $500 when I was 16 years old. Pay back the loan each month until it has a zero balance. 

3. Open a credit card and make a few small charges and pay them off each month. Don't close this card, EVER! Even if you move on to a better card later, you will still want to make a charge every now and then to keep this one open. It's going to count towards your averages later. My first credit card was a JCPenny charge card, once again 16 years old. When I stopped working there I stopped using it. Had I kept it open it would be my longest running account at 22 years, and would drive up my average age of accounts. 

That's it. A couple of very simple steps you can probably afford to do right now to get you moving in the right direction. There are a lot of other factors that go into a credit score but this will at least start you out on earning some payment history and also credit diversity.