I got good credit. How can I help my wife establish credit?

[space-time]

I have a fairly decent credit history (FICO score 800+, never missed a payment, do debt, opened the first account eleven years ago when I came to the US, etc.). Now that we became permanent residents, my wife applied for a SSN and I would like her to start building a credit history ASAP. She does not work (stay@home mom), but she might apply for a job in the not-do-distant future. Is there any way I can help her establish a good credit history? Apply for a new CC together? I already have her as authorized user on all my CC, but that does not apply, does it? She is not liable for these old accounts, most of them I opened before we got married. If we open a new account together, that should help, right? Any other idea?

Also, if she applies for a CC alone in her name, cans he put income 0 but other household income [my annual salary] ?

Thanks.

[blusubaru]

Get any major CC you can for her. Even if it's a $100 limit. Use it and pay it off EVERY month. With the help of my parents, I started doing that when I was 14. Then when I started to drive, it was to be used only for gasoline purchases. Now that I'm married, paying student loans and have a house, I know what real debt is

[C(-)ris]

I have been reading some interesting articles about building credit. Apparently, there is a trent starting where you can "buy" credit. Basically, you give your info and some cash and they add you as a user to someone else's credit cards. This gets you their past payment history. The loophole was supposed to be for children getting cards from their parents, but people have been exploiting it. I added my wife to one of my cards that had a good 8 year payment history, and after 2 months her score went up over 150 points. I plan on adding her to others in the near future.

[comaplate]

There's a really good forum for this kind of stuff over at creditboards.com, but to answer a few of your questions:

Adding as an authorized user can help, especially if it's a card with a long positive history.

Aside from mortgages, a lot of card issuers don't usually do "joint" accounts. They prefer to have a primary cardholder and other cards are authorized users.

As far as the income thing, if they only ask for household income, you can put your combined income. If they ask for personal income separate from spousal or other income, that might cause issues.

[Gyrene]

When my wife was working she applied for credit cards at several department stores and I didn't have to sign a thing. I wasn't even notified.

[mattkime]

These threads come up frequently and I'm hesitant to start my own with my little tiny variation but....

I just bought a MacBook Pro with Apple's 90 day same as cash offer which is essentially a credit card with 0% on the initial apple purchase. I don't see any particularly good reasons to keep the card around after i pay the balance. However, I've read that quickly opening and closing cards can lower your credit score. Should I close it right away or would I be better off waiting? If it matters, I don't see myself taking out any large lines of credit in the next few years.

[vision63]

Insist that she remove the "I'd rather be shopping at Nordstroms" license frame from the car. That step alone can improve your Fico score 100 points.

[AlphaDog]

[quote vision63]Insist that she remove the "I'd rather be shopping at Nordstroms" license frame from the car. That step alone can improve your Fico score 100 points.
Apparently it hasn't hurt my credit score too much, because there isn't room in the scoring system to add another 100 points to mine.

Have her start by applying for a store credit card. That will give you an indication how this will go and whether your income can be used on the card in place of hers. I seem to remember that it can be, but that might depend on the store, too.

Also, check your current cards where she's an authorized user and see if she could keep them without being hassled if something should happen to you. After my husband died, I learned a hard lesson about which cards I could continue to use and which I couldn't. Discover, for example, closed the account as soon as they learned my husband had died, and I had to apply for a new card; even though I was an authorized user, I wasn't an account owner. American Express simply changed the ownership of the account to me, because I was his surviving spouse, although I had not been a co-owner on that account. On yet another account, I was a co-owner, so his name was just removed, and it was business as usual. I no longer remember what the subtle differences were, but it was somehow connected to the type of financial institution that issued the card. Believe me, it was hard enough making my way through the first few months of widowhood, and I sure didn't need the humiliation of standing at a counter, trying to buy something, and hearing that my Discover card charge was rejected because of "fraudulent use."

[space-time]

[quote AlphaDog]... Believe me, it was hard enough making my way through the first few months of widowhood, and I sure didn't need the humiliation of standing at a counter, trying to buy something, and hearing that my Discover card charge was rejected because of "fraudulent use."
Hi A-Dog, thanks for the good advice, in fact I remember this is how I got my first CC too, I think I bough a TV from Kaufmanns and paid 90 days later. I am not even sure if this department store exist anymore.

And regarding Discover, yea, I am not too found of them myself. I had once a discover CC but I closed the account and never looked back ever since. I use a MC for convenience, but for international travel or expensive items (dSLRs, Macs) I use AmEx. They double the warranty for most items, and offer additional travel insurance if you buy the tickets with their card.