Hacker News Reader

Comment by aphextron | Hacker News Reader

>Get credit while the economy is good

So much this. If you don't have many credit cards I would highly recommend going out and getting a few right now. I went from $0 to $30,000 in available credit in a month, and my score jumped 100 points. The offers are crazy. It's standard these days to get 0% for 18 months, no fee, and 50,000 bonus points. They are literally paying you $500 to use their card for a year at 0%. As long as you're smart enough to never carry a balance it's literally free money. I've made over $1000 in bonuses this year on top of cash back, just by rotating my regular daily spending over 3 different new cards.

View on HN

This is nice to have, but I don't think that's what she meant. Credit cards are a terrible emergency fund - the interest rates are too high.

She meant you should get approved for a business/personal line of credit now while credit is still being approved. Rates on those are low enough that they can be useful in a cash crunch.

>She meant you should get approved for a business/personal line of credit now while credit is still being approved. Rates on those are low enough that they can be useful in a cash crunch.

Sure, but it's quite hard to get a decent line of credit without extensive history. Whereas literally anyone with a 600+ score can go get tens of thousands of dollars in available credit right now which massively boosts your score.

I definitely don't recommend relying on them as an emergency fund, but the added accounts and increased available credit will get you prime rates on any other lending if you're not at 750+ yet.

If you have the discipline this makes sense. Tho the time it takes you to acquire and manage 3 cards isn't free. I've found it isn't work the mental energy and just stick with one rewards card.

I think a big part of it is "how much satisfaction would you feel from taking money out of credit card companies' pockets?"

The credit card companies will lower the credit limit on the cards in a recession.

People in the 2008 recession thought they could live off their cards for years only to see their limits slashed drastically.

Same for Home Equity lines of credit. I had a friend who was a banker, he had planned on using a $100K HELOC to remodel his house. He was stunned when Chase dropped his Line from $100K to $5K. Killed that remodel.

When I heard that, I maxed out my line of credit and stuck the money in a different bank. That choice got me through 2009. Glad I did it.

Can you recommend a card or two?

Chase Saphire Preferred is probably the best deal right now. 15 months at 0% and 50,000 bonus points after you spend $4000.

I'd say sign up for Credit Karma or Nerdwallet and see what they recommend for you though. They'll give you a list with approval odds for each card.

Check out /r/churning for more info than you ever wanted.

Yes, this! Opening credit cards now (but not using them, beyond the initial minimum spend that’s required to get your points) is a good idea. But before you jump into the pool, read about the tricks and gotchas, such as Chase and their “5/24 rule”.

Once I got a card with 2% cash back and no fee, I felt like I had gotten as good a deal as was possible. I expect that some day such deals will go away though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com