Belt [BillPay] and Suspenders [AutoPay] Approach to Maximize FICO Scores

Bob, what is your reason for caring WHAT your FICO score is? Are you a professional borrower? I haven't had to borrow for 20 years and, frankly, couldn't give a damn if my FICO fluctuates a few points either way. Having so many credit cards almost guarantees that problems will eventually occur. If not during your life, I pity the poor executor who has to straighten out your affairs!!!! Happy New Year!!

When I have a dsipute with a company and refuse to pay some ridiculous charge, they often threaten to turn "my account" over to a collection agent and hurt my credit. My response is that I pay cash for everything except credit card charges which are paid off monthly, so do whatever you want to my credit rating. I don't need any credit.

You will if you change jobs or try to rent an apartment. As the use of credit scores increase beyond lenders actually/really lending money, I predict their use will increase in interactions with a wide variety of organizations. But I do agree with you in asking Bob why he goes to great lengths in keeping track.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as I maintain a few cards and pay my bills (some credit) on time, I let the FICO chips fall where they may.

Life is too short to worry about such things.

You will if you change jobs or try to rent an apartment or ....(Fill in the blanks ). As the use of credit scores increase beyond lenders actually/really lending money, their their use will CONTINUE to increase in interactions with a wide variety of organizations. It's a legal way of them to get quantitative information about "how good a person you are" (even if it might not correlate with reality).

But I do agree with you in asking Bob why he goes to great lengths in keeping track.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as I maintain a few cards and pay my bills (some credit) on time, I let the FICO chips fall where they may.

Being the official Internet guru on all things FICO,

I have certain responsibilities ;-)

Or buy car insurance...

When I buy the car, I pay cash, ditto for insurance, house, etc.

That's fine. Except that the _amount_ that you are paying in cash for that car/home insurance and indeed whether or not you will be offered a policy can be affected by your credit score in the US, depending on what state you live in and what company you deal with.

Same here. The only credit I use is my cards and I pay the balance monthly.

If they're offering no-interest financing, you'd be silly to refuse an offer to use their money at no charge.

There is no such thing as no-interest financing, the dealership charges extra for the car and uses that extra money to "buy down" the interest rate to zero (or whatever the lower rate may be) and you can almost always negotiate a lower price for cash if you're willing to spend time and haggle.

Read closer - the issues is not _how_ you pay your insurance bill, it's the amount you will be charged.

Agreed. But only once in my 65 years, Bert, have I heard of a real-life deal like that that actually was proven to have happened.

It depemds on the state whether they are allowed to consider credit history and the number is decreasing. GEICO in particular does not check credit and has very competitive rates.

Agreed - which was also posted earlier in the thread.