Check your free annual credit reports on all 3 bureaus to see if there are any issues before applying anywhere, and that should give you a good idea of whether you're going to have a decent credit score or not if you're not sure or don't get your score on a credit card bill.  

As renter, I would give my landlord a bottle of wine or a gift card to a coffee shop along with a personalized card with every December rent check.

We paid for the house with cash, the labor a cash advance on a credit card and materials on Lowes and Menards cards.

I have heard that if you start a search to see if a domain name is taken that sometimes hackers will purchase the domain name you are interested in, snap it up and buy it cheap right from under you as you are inputting your credit card number.  

Uncle Bob can't give you a $50K loan against a Michael Jordan rookie card, but if you have a $50K stock portfolio you don't want to touch, then Uncle Bob can give you a $50K loan against that.If you need any additional structuring help, feel free to PM me.

This way you've established a connection and the contractor will be more agreeing to stop by and give you a free estimate or at lease you will have a few business cards.

as a matter of fact i pay bill a day or two early when i get paid i pay all bills immediately and im broke next day. do to past identity theft i have to or could lose money ive had debit card empty about ten times in past few years. anyway, every single year i can count it they say i owe a double payment and ive never missed keep screen shots of every one to prove it or keep m.o. reciept!

You may want to pull the "if this works out I may have a lot of work for you in the future" card.

No investor would be great but I might've used a credit card 5 times when I was 18 and I owe for 'overpayment' of disability that my grandma used to get until I was 18.

When you look at the big picture - as investors we have to scrap and scrape to get to the point where you can hire good contractors.