Alt text: Screenshot of a receipt showing payment over time of a $1.50 hotdog in four equal installments of $0.375 spread out every other week.
Alt text: Screenshot of a receipt showing payment over time of a $1.50 hotdog in four equal installments of $0.375 spread out every other week.
Pay in 4 is usually zero interest, but they’ll stack heavy late fees if you miss it.
“why can’t we get a mortgage?”
“Well I bought a hot dog on a payment plan for a laugh, and I defaulted on a 38 cent payment”
“oh no”
Conversely, you can’t have a house, you have no credit.
Fine I just paid off a 1.50 loan for a hot dog.
Ok, now you can borrow 500k because you proved yourself responsible with $1.50
Reality isn’t too far off, back in the day I couldn’t get a loan because I had zero credit history, but then could get a mortgage after a few months of getting a credit card with like a 500 dollar credit limit.
When I was a young adult I bought my first car with a loan because my girlfriend at the time relied on her parents old van which had the engine die (I very recently learned this was due to off label oil change practices her ex told her to do when he worked at the Walmart auto dept)
Anyways since I had basically no credit history, I ended up with a 22% interest loan on my car! I didn’t know what I was looking at in the paperwork and the sketchy dealership my BIL insisted we go to flat out was “joking” "oh you don’t want to read that. Just sign here!’
Once I had a chance to look at what I signed I quickly opened a bank account and got that loan refinanced down to an 8% interest rate. I also learned that it had some extended service plans added on that I didn’t know about which didn’t cover anything that wasn’t already covered by the manufacturer warranty.
Later on I went back to college, pulled equity out of the car and refinanced it again down to a 4% interest rate, then a few months later I totaled it hitting a deer.
I kinda forgot what my point was in sharing this story but here we are I guess
Back in the day, one could get a credit history by being listed as an authorized user on someone elses card. One never needed physical possession of the card, nor needed to use it.
Still possible with AmEx, if I’m not mistaken, and in some cases can backdate your AAoA.