Meaning of “credit”
"You're looking at the ""wrong"" credit. Here's the Wikipedia article about the bookkeeping (vs the Finance, that you've quoted) term."
It doesn't matter to the credit agencies if there is a co-signer or not. However, your family member will need to take into consideration if they are willing to be responsible for the loan in the event you are unable to make payments. Being a co-signer means they are agreeing to pay the loan amount. It will also impact their credit score/report, either improve it if all goes well, or destroy it if neither one of you are able to pay the loan. So to you, assuming you can pay all the payments and not default, it makes no difference. But to the co-signer, it could create a huge impact.  https://www.thebalance.com/does-co-signing-affect-credit-315368 This can mean a few things to me.  Some of which has been mentioned already. It can mean one (or all) of the following to me: You take out a new credit card and transfer ALL other credit balances to it. (Only good if you destroy the others, this is a 0% offer, AND you plan on paying this card off furiously.) You do the loan thing mentioned earlier. You go to a credit consolidation service who will handle your paying your payments and you send them one payment each month.  (Highly discourage using them.  A majority of them are shady, and won't get do what they say they will do.  Check Better Business Bureau if you find yourself considering them as an option.) In the first two cases, you are just reducing the number of hands reaching into your bank account.  But keep in mind, doing this is not the same as paying off debt.  You can't borrow your way out.  You can do this as part of your plan, but do so CAREFULLY. Is your name on the title at all? You may have (slightly) more leverage in that case, but co-signing any loans is not a good idea, even for a friend or relative. As this article notes: Generally, co-signing refers to financing, not ownership. If the   primary accountholder fails to make payments on the loan or the retail   installment sales contract (a type of auto financing dealers sell),   the co-signer is responsible for those payments, or their credit will   suffer. Even if the co-signer makes the payments, they’re still not   the owner if their name isn’t on the title. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) notes: If you co-sign a loan, you are legally obligated to repay the loan in   full. Co-signing a loan does not mean serving as a character reference   for someone else.  When you co-sign, you promise to pay the loan yourself. It means that   you risk having to repay any missed payments immediately. If the   borrower defaults on the loan, the creditor can use the same   collection methods against you that can be used against the borrower   such as demanding that you repay the entire loan yourself, suing you,   and garnishing your wages or bank accounts after a judgment. Your   credit score(s) may be impacted by any late payments or defaults. Co-signing an auto loan does not mean you have any right to the   vehicle, it just means that you have agreed to become obligated to   repay the amount of the loan. So make sure you can afford to pay this   debt if the borrower cannot. Per this article and this loan.com article, options to remove your name from co-signing include: If you're name isn't on the title, you'll have to convince your ex-boyfriend and the bank to have you removed as the co-signer, but from your brief description above, it doesn't seem that your ex is going to be cooperative. Unfortunately, as the co-signer and guarantor of the loan, you're legally responsible for making the payments if he doesn't. Not making the payments could ruin your credit as well. One final option to consider is bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a drastic option, and you'll have to weigh whether the disruption to your credit and financial life will be worth it versus repaying the balance of that auto loan. Per this post: Another not so pretty option is bankruptcy. This is an extreme route,   and in some instances may not even guarantee a name-removal from the   loan. Your best bet is to contact a lawyer or other source of legal help to review your options on how to proceed with this issue. You mentioned you have a bunch of credit cards with no balance, while others have fairly high balances I would not recommend you to close the 0 balance credit cards if they have lower APR. You can transfer the balance to those cards with lower APR. Now, if those 0 balance cards do not have lower APR, closing them will reduce my overall balance and hurt my credit rating and that is true, assume that you mean overall credit line instead of overall balance. But to my understanding, if you keep the payments good and on time, that effect is only temporary, and therefore you can definitely close them.  Don't forget, paying off your balance can also lower your utilization rate and therefore increase your credit ratings, and you can focus more on that instead. Also larger number of accounts with amounts owed can indicate higher risk of over-extension, therefore you should pay off your low balance accounts first, and do not open new credit accounts until you have paid off the current balance. In view of business, we have to book the entries. Business view, owner and business are different. When capital is invested in business by owner, in future business has to repay it.  That's why, capital always credit. When we come about  bank (business prospective) - cash, bank, fd are like assets which can help in the business. Bank is current asset (Real account) - Debit (what comes into the business)                                        Credit (what goes out of the business) Hence credit and debit differs from what type of account is it.... credit - when business liables debit - what business has and receivables "A lot of credit card companies these days uses what they call ""daily interest"" where they charge the interest rate for the number of days till you pay off what you spent. This allows them to make more money than the ""period billing"".  The idea of credit, theoretically, is that there isn't really a day when you can borrow without paying interest - in theory" "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_imk_wp_178_2017.pdf) reduced by 100%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; Economic activity may affect the development of credit through credit demand and credit supply channels.  &gt; 3.1 Credit expansion and financial crises The empirical literature on the determinants of excessive credit expansion and financial instability has mostly analyzed the large build-ups of bank credit to the private non-financial sector since these data are available over a long time period.  &gt; The positive correlation between economic activity and credit may result from the effect of economic activity on credit demand and credit supply but also from the effect of credit availability on economic activity.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6kt8rs/imk_macroeconomic_factors_behind_financial/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~157450 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **credit**^#1 **income**^#2 **financial**^#3 **test**^#4 **household**^#5" Don't do debt.  After a few years (I forget how many) the bad history will have rolled off, but by then you will probably have no desire to go back into debt again. If you do want to build up a credit score, then at that point it's essentially the same as starting from scratch.  However, from personal experience, once you've lived debt free for a few years you never want to get back on the debt wheel again. A credit score is the output of a behavioral model that indicates the chances that a bank will earn money from your business. Do things that earn the banks money and you will have a high credit score.