Mitigate Effects Of Credit With Tangible Money
If you have no credit history but you have a job, buying an inexpensive used car should still be doable with only a marginally higher interest rate on the car. This can be offset with a cosigner, but it probably isn't that big of a deal if you purchase a car that you can pay off in under a year. The cost of insurance for a car is affected by your credit score in many locations, so regardless you should also consider selling your other car rather than maintaining and insuring it while it's not your primary mode of transportation. The main thing to consider is that the terms of the credit will not be advantageous, so you should pay the full balance on any credit cards each month to not incur high interest expenses. A credit card through a credit union is advantageous because you can often negotiate a lower rate after you've established the credit with them for a while (instead of closing the card and opening a new credit card account with a lower rate--this impacts your credit score negatively because the average age of open accounts is a significant part of the score. This advice is about the same except that it will take longer for negative marks like missed payments to be removed from your report, so expect 7 years to fully recover from the bad credit. Again, minimizing how long you have money borrowed for will be the biggest benefit. A note about cosigners: we discourage people from cosigning on other people's loans. It can turn out badly and hurt a relationship. If someone takes that risk and cosigns for you, make every payment on time and show them you appreciate what they have done for you. Genius answer: Don't spend more than you make. Pay off your outstanding debts. Put plenty away towards savings so that you don't need to rely on credit more than necessary. Guaranteed to work every time.  Answer more tailored to your question: What you're asking for is not realistic, practical, logical, or reasonable. You're asking banks to take a risk on you, knowing based on your credit history that you're bad at managing debt and funds, solely based on how much cash you happen to have on hand at the moment you ask for credit or a loan or based on your salary which isn't guaranteed (except in cases like professional athletes where long-term contracts are in play).  You can qualify for lower rates for mortgages with a larger down-payment, but you're still going to get higher rate offers than someone with good credit.  If you plan on having enough cash around that you think banks would consider making you credit worthy, why bother using credit at all and not just pay for things with cash?  The reason banks offer credit or low interest on loans is because people have proven themselves to be trustworthy of repaying that debt. Based on the information you have provided, the bank wouldn't consider you trustworthy yet. Even if you have $100,000 in cash, they don't know that you're not just going to spend it tomorrow and not have the ability to repay a long-term loan. You could use that $100,000 to buy something and then use that as collateral, but the banks will still consider you a default risk until you've established a credit history to prove them otherwise. "Right now you are standing at a fork in the road.  If I could tell my younger self who blasted past that fork without noticing it what to do, I would say:  Research ""Financial Independence"" and ""Early Retirement"" and ""frugal living"".  If you do it right you can be financially independent in 5-15 years depending on your comfort level with frugal living. Many people celebrate graduation by financing a new car.  It's like a quadruple whammy.  New car brings sticker shock.  Financing is paying to use someone else's money.  Buying a car period is buying into the commuter lifestyle.  And the cash flow could have gone to reducing debt or building savings.  One blog I read advises that this step adds ten years to the time you have to work before you become financially independent."
One of your credit reports said this was negatively impacting your credit. You are entitled to a free copy of your credit report once per year from each of the three major credit reporting companies in the U.S. (TRW, Equifax and one other). It is a good idea to check on these anyway, if you have credit accounts.  Get copies from the other two credit reporting companies. See if they also say that your credit is negatively impacted by so many loans, even though the balances are small. If all three credit reporting companies are in consensus about negative effecting your credit, then it is true. If that IS the case, check with your subsidized loan lender about consolidation. If the unsubsidized loans are from the same lender, ask them too. If they're from different lenders, you might want to ask at your bank about getting a debt consolidation loan. You might be able to save money by refinancing (consolidating) the unsubsidized student loans as one loan, maybe even ALL the loans as one loan, particularly if you bank at a credit union. There is very little effect whatsoever of having a joint bank account--positive or negative. Positive effects: It would be very easy to send your mother money...she can just take it out of the account.  If you passed away she could get the money without having to use the legal system (or vice versa). This latter effect is why I have a bunch of joint accounts with my wife...if either of us died I wouldn't want getting access to our money to be an additional hassle. Negative effects: She is able to access money in that account without your consen, which you have pointed out is not going to happen.  The case I'm thinking of would be something like a tax lien against her.  A government agency might choose to pull money out of that joint account.  That would be a downside for you. If we were discussing credit cards, a loan, or a line of credit, there would be a number of legal and credit-rating effects from joint ownership.  Not so much with checking accounts. If you wanted to spend money in another country, a specialist credit card would be the most cost-effective way. Near-spot exchange rate, zero-loading, no/low ATM fees. Likewise a pre-paid debit card would also allow for money transfer across borders. If this is the right situation, FOREX trading platforms are overkill to achieve a valid solution. "Right now, I think Tesla is scared of being wounded by being too successful. If the Model 3 is as popular as I think it will be, and they can't crank them out fast enough, there's going to be a constant barrage of negative publicity. I guess they now see anything that can mitigate demand to a more reasonable level as a good thing. Talking about ditching the tax credits is easy when you're on top, but a few years ago, it was hard to get a straight price out of them on how much the cars actually cost, because of all the weasel math. The price they preferred to tell you was minus the tax credit(s) and even incorporated savings from not buying gasoline factored in. ""Yeah, that's all good and well, but how much does it actually cost?""" The problem with that is that banks create the money they lend, thus they are able to lend far more.  Individuals can only lend money that has already been created, and are at a big disadvantage.  If it weren't for the federal reserve money printing machine, it would be a viable lending scheme. There's a difference between physical currency and money (For example a bank may only hold only a small percentage of total deposits as cash that it's customers can withdraw).   I'm not sure which you're referring to, but either way you should read  about inflation. &gt;if you don’t have a lot of money, the presence of a sizable sum in the house or even in the bank means that you’ll be constantly tempted to dip into it.  The psychology behind statements like this are a source of amusement to me. They seem to presuppose that those who have less money are bad with it, kind of a chicken and egg issue that assumes one over the other.  It makes me think that authors, researchers and opiners have likely never felt the degree of financial insecurity that drives behaviors such as the ones being discussed.  If you don't have a lot of money, the possession of a sizable sum presents other problems, such as issues of needs and purchases that have been put off due to a lack of resources while you prioritized for survival. You put off buying the washing machine because your car needed repairs, how else were you going to be able to get to work? You can limp by using a laundromat or doing laundry at your parents' house. But you likely put off all sorts of other needs as well, and now you have to find the best way to allocate a sizable sum that likely isn't going to be enough to address all of the needs you have put off.  While you're trying to decide how to best allocate this resource, don't forget the talking heads that lecture you on the importance of an emergency fund. Disregard for a moment that when cash is such a scarce resource, any unexpectedly dire circumstance which would be best resolved by your having more of it probably constitutes an emergency. "(Ignoring any ethical considerations of defaulting on a mortgage obligation) If your credit score fell, future costs of borrowing would be greater, if you could borrow money at all. The true financial cost of these penalties would depend on your own intentions and circumstances. The value of a credit score cannot be quantified in any absolute sense because of these circumstances which will vary from person to person. Suppose a decision would result in your score falling from 700 to 600. As a result, a future car loan would cost something like 2% more in interest per year. Let's also suppose you would not be able to find a bank to give you money to buy a new home.  The difficulties caused by this situation would depend on the person. Some people have no intention of taking out another mortgage or buying another car, and to them, a lowered credit score might make no difference. To others, it would be desirable to avoid these penalties. The value of credit score would be equal to how much you would be willing to pay in the present to avoid these future penalties.  If you intend to borrow money in the near future, and somehow know how much more interest you will pay as a result of your lower score, then you could approximate the value of the credit drop by summing all of the additional interest costs discounted into the present. Something a little like this: Year's Additional Cost in Interest / (1 + Your Personal Opportunity Cost of Funds) ^ (Years in the future this extra interest will be paid).  See time value of money explanation: Can you explain ""time value of money"" and ""compound interest"" and provide examples of each? It could also be the case that you miss out on valuable financial opportunities as a result which could be added to the present value of the credit score drop.  For example, if the drop made you totally unable to purchase an investment property that would net you $10,000 in cash flows /year (which would yield cash flows immediately). The value of that investment would have been $10,000 / (1 + Your Personal Opportunity Cost of Funds). Since you would not be able to make that investment (in this example) as a result of the decreased score, the present value of the investment would be an opportunity cost of the lower score. There are other hard-to-quantify costs of low credit to consider as well, ranging from housing to employment to bragging rights.  Hopefully this has helped :)"