I am under 18 years old, in the US, my parents have terrible credit, how can I take out a loan?
Depending on the state this might not be possible. Loans are considered contracts, and various states regulate how minors may enter into them. For example, in the state of Oregon, a minor may NOT enter into a contract without their parent being on the contract as well. So you are forced to wait until you turn 18. At that time you won't have a credit history, and to lenders that often is worse than having bad credit. I can't help with the car (other than to recommend you buy a junker for $500-$1,000 and just live with it for now), but you could certainly get a secured credit card or line of credit from your local bank. The way they are arranged is, you make a deposit of an amount of your choosing (generally at least $200 for credit cards, and $1,000 for lines of credit), and receive a revolving line with a limit of that same amount. As you use and pay on this loan, it will be reported in your credit history. If you start that now, by the time you turn 18 you will have much better options for purchasing vehicles. I am 17 and currently have a loan out for a car. My parents also have terrible credit, and because I knew this I was able to get around it. Your co-signer on your loan does not have to be your parent, at least in Wisconsin, I used my grandmother, who has excellent credit, as my cosigner. With my loan, we had made it so it doesn't hurt her credit if I don't get my payments in on time, maybe this is something for you to look into.
"Do social workers need Master's degrees? It may not all be from undergrad.  Alternately, if she had her loans in forbearance while job searching or something, interest would capitalize when she took them out of forbearance. She could also have been on a plan that had lower monthly payments earlier and scales up to higher ones and now she's in a higher part.  That said, did you not come from the generation of ""get a degree at all costs, it doesn't matter in what, companies won't hire you without a degree?""  Yeah, it's on the borrowers to repay and they could have chosen not to listen to that, but I think it's also somewhat irresponsible of us to expect 18 year olds (many of whom have never really handled their finances) to make smart choices about loans. Which is why every teacher, parent, guidance counselor, etc. isn't exactly innocent in this whole mess." First, you need to be aware that the credit score reported by Mint is Equifax Credit Score. Equifax Credit Score, like FICO, Vantagescore, and others, is based on a proprietary formula that is not publicly available.  Every score is calculated with a different formula, and can vary from each other widely.  Lenders almost exclusively only use FICO scores, so the score number you have is likely different than the score lenders will use. Second, understand that the advice you see from places like Mint and Credit Karma will almost always tell you that you don't have enough credit card accounts.  The reason for this is that they make their money by referring customers to credit card applications.  They have a financial interest in telling you that you need more credit cards. Finally, realize that credit score is just a number, and is only useful for a limited number of things.  Higher is better to a point, and after that, you get no benefit from increasing your score.   My advice to you is this: Don't stress out about your credit score, especially a free score reported by Credit Karma or Mint.  If you really have a desire to find out your score, you can pay FICO to get your actual score, but it's not cheap.  You can also sometimes get your FICO score by applying for a loan and asking the lender.  I last saw my FICO scores (there were three, one from each credit bureau) when I applied for a mortgage a couple of years ago, and the mortgage rep gave them to me for free.  But honestly, knowing your score doesn't do much for you, as the best way to increase it is to simply make your payments on time and wait. Don't give in to bad conventional advice from places that are funded by the financial services industry.  The thing that makes your credit score go up is a long history of paying your bills on time.  Despite what you commonly read about credit scores, I'm not convinced that you can radically boost your scores by having lots of open credit card accounts.  At the time I applied for my last mortgage, I only had 2 open credit cards (still true), and the oldest open account was about 1.5 years old.  The average of my 3 scores was just over 800.  But I've been paying my bills on time for at least 20 years now.  Only get credit cards that you actually want, and close the ones you don't want. "I am a bit confused here as to how a 4K loan will negatively effect your credit score if payments are made on time.  FICO scores are based upon how well you borrow.  If you borrow, pay back on time, your score will not go down.  Perhaps a bit in the short run when you first secure the loan, but that should come back quickly.  In the long run it will help improve your score which seems like it would be more important to you. Having the provider finance your loan will probably not show up on your credit unless you fail to pay and they send to collections. If the score is so important to you, which I think is somewhat unwise, then use a credit card.  With a 750 you should be able to get a pretty good rate, but assume it is 18%.  In less then 9 months you will have it paid off, paying about $293 in interest.  You could consider that a part of the cost of doing business for maintaining a high credit score.  Again not what I would advise, but it might meet your needs. One alternative is go with lending club.  With that kind of score, you are looking at 7% or so.  At $500 a month, you are still looking at just over 8 months and paying about $100 in interest.  Much less money for improving your credit score. Edit based upon the comment: ""My understanding is that using a significant portion of your available credit balance is bad for your credit, even if you pay your bills on time."" Define bad.  As I said it might go down slightly in the short term.  In three months you will have almost 33% of the loan paid off, which is significantly lower then the original balance.  If you go the credit card route, you may be approved for quite a bit more then the 4000, which may not move the needle at all.  Are you planning on buying a home in the next 90 days?  If not, why does a small short term dip matter?  Will your life really be effected if your score goes down to 720 for three months? Keep in mind this is exactly the kind of behavior that the banks want you to engage in.  If you worship your FICO score, which gives no indication of wealth then you should do exactly what I am suggesting." Since this post was migrated from Parenting, my reply was in the context where it appeared to be misrepresenting facts to make a point. I've edited it to be more concise to my main point. In my opinion, the best way to save for your childs future is to get rid of as much of your own debt as possible. Starting today. For the average American, a car is 6-10%. Most people have at least a couple credit cards, ranging from 10-25% (no crap). College loans can be all over the map (5-15%) as can be signature (8-15%) or secured bank loans (4-8%). Try to stop living within your credit and live within your means. Yeah it will suck to not go to movies or shop for cute things at Kohl's, but only today.  First, incur no more debt. Then, the easiest way I found to pay things off is to use your tax returns and reduce your cable service (both potentially $Ks per year) to pay off a big debt like a car or student loan. You just gave yourself an immediate raise of whatever your payment is. If you think long term (we're talking about long-term savings for a childs college) there are things you can do to pay off debt and save money without having to take up a 2nd job... but you have to think in terms of years, not months. Is this kind of thing pie in the sky? Yes and no, but it takes a plan and diligence. For example, we have no TV service (internet only service redirected an additional $100/mo to the wifes lone credit card) and we used '12 taxes to pay off the last 4k on the car. We did the same thing on our van last year. It takes willpower to not cheat, but that's only really necessary for the first year-ish... well before that point you'll be used to the Atkins Diet on your wallet and will have no desire to cheat. It doesn't really hurt your quality of life (do you really NEED 5 HBO channels?) and it sets everyone up for success down the line. The moral of the story is that by paying down your debt today, you're taking steps to reduce long haul expenditures. A stable household economy is a tremendous foundation for raising children and can set you up to be more able to deal with the costs of higher ed. My son is in a similar situation where he is 21 and in college. My wife and I claimed him as a dependant on our taxes last year. He had still been able to get some student loans as a dependant as well as scholarships. I have told him that we will not cosign on a loan for him. It isn't because we don't like our son, it is simply because too many unexpected things can happen.  He has been working multiple jobs which is one thing I would suggest as well as donating plasma for extra money to have a social life. As an electrical engineering major he doesn't have much time to be social. He cuts rent by having roommates and does most of his own cooking to help with food costs.  The main thing he does to keep his costs under control is attends a school that isn't outrageously expensive.  An expensive school does not offer as much benefit for an undergrad degree as it might for a graduate degree.  Another option is to look for a job that had some sort of tuition assistance.  Another option along that same line is look into military service either active duty or reserves as there is tuition help to be found there. There are options that don't involve debt. As a side note my son used a student loan last year however, this coming year he has his budget figured out and he will not be needing one at all. Sorry. As far as I know, a person's SS is the only way to establish credit. This is the first thing they ask whenever you apply for any service in the US. If you are the main account holder I would try contacting your bank directly, some of them have very accommodating services for this kind of thing. You might even consider going in person if you have a local branch, this might just make communicating easier. They will probably go over your recent transactions with you to identify the fraudulent ones. You might do this first by yourself if you have an online account. Once you identify the fraudulent purchases they will probably take a week or two to investigate/process and reimburse you. But do NOT just close the account and forget about it- first off closing an account that is close to $2,000 in debt probably isn't even possible. Second, if you forgot about it for a long time and just let you credit take a hit you could end up really paying for it(in the form of higher interest payments) later in life when you try to get anything financed like car or house or even student loans for college. And make no mistake that can amount to *maaany* thousands of dollars more than you would otherwise pay over the course of a loan. So don't damage your credit if you can avoid it. Long story short, banks have special departments to handle this kind of thing, so work with your bank. See how that goes, if you run into hangups you may need to bring your parents into the loop. Good luck! 17.5 thousand miles/year is pretty high mileage.  You could find an Accord or Civic of comparable age with much lower mileage than that, and it wouldn't be a stretch for someone (even with your limited credit history) to get a loan on an old car like that.  You might try to have your parents cosign on a loan depending on their financial circumstances.  That's how I bought my first car 13 years ago. The biggest surprise you might want to consider is the cost of full collision auto coverage which will be required by whatever bank you finance through.  Get quotes for that before signing any papers.  (I spent $2000 more on a motorcycle because the more powerful one cost $2000 less/year to insure just a few years after I bought that first car.)  Speaking of which, another thing to consider given the nice LA weather is a motorcycle.  The total cost of ownership is much lower than a car.  You will probably not want to pursue that option if you do not have medical insurance, and you may not want to anyway.