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Should I pay off my car loan within the year?
Credit reports have line items that, if all is well, say "paid as agreed." A car loan almost certainly gets reported. In your case it probably says the happy "paid as agreed."  It will continue to say that if you pay it off in full. You can get the happy "paid as agreed" from a credit card too.  You can get it by paying the balance by the due date every month, or paying the mininum, or anything in between, on time. But you'll blow less money in interest if you pay each bill in full each month. You don't have to carry a balance. In the US you can get a free credit report once a year from each of the three credit bureaus. Here's the way to do that with minimal upsell/cross-sell hassles. https://www.annualcreditreport.com/  In your situation you'd probably be smart to ask for a credit report every four months (from each bureau in turn) so you can see how things are going.  They don't give you your FICO score for free, but you don't really care about that until you're going for a big loan, like for a condo. It might be good to take a look at one of those free credit reports real soon, as you prepare to close out your car loan. If you need other loans, consider working with a credit union. They sometimes offer better interest rates, and they often are diligent about making credit bureau reports for their good customers; they help you build credit. You mentioned wanting to cut back on insurance coverage. It's a worthy goal, but it's generally called "self-insuring" in the business.  If you cancel your collision coverage and then wreck your car, you absorb the cost of replacing it. So think about your personal ability to handle that kind of risk.