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Comment by bsenftner | Hacker News Reader

Credit scores can only affect your life if you live on credit. I spent 20 years without a credit card, and the only impact was being a hassle to rent a car. but as far as cars go, I do the unthinkable: I save and buy with cash. I simply do not use credit. Beyond my house payment, I purchase everything up front, including the nice and hefty discount when paying insurance in full for the year. It is a pain in the ass to get used to not using credit, but it is so, so worth it.

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This is simply not true. Your credit score is frequently taken into consideration applying to rent a place to live.

I rented my first two apartments with no credit history whatsoever before buying a house (and acquiring a mortgage) with no credit history at all.

How's about staying in the same rent controlled apartment for 32 years, so I can save? That was amazing, as I was still paying $950 when my neighbors were paying $2200 for a smaller place.

In 2022, in most large American cities, searching for a place to rent with no or a bad credit score can be a death sentence. You're limiting your options drastically.

> It is a pain in the ass to get used to not using credit, but it is so, so worth it.

Using credit to buy things you can't afford is a bad idea, but using credit to better leverage your money is very useful. Especially with increasing inflation, having debt that you have no trouble servicing isn't a bad thing.

I have also had this experience. Renting a car is very strange in that regard, but other car rental businesses are happy to take my business with a refundable security deposit, so not my problem.

In fact, I find it strange and shortsided, because the people without credit are generally going to be the people who have less of a hard time fulfilling their payment obligations.

Other than that, it has never affected my life. You can get a manually underwritten mortgage still today.

There is always someone else who wants your money more.

How did you get home loan if you didn't have any debt to build up your score and credit history?

It's called putting down $150K in cash, and having a stable job. Also, my credit "score" is "N/A".

Putting $150k down is like standard since you need to put down 20% anyway. Are you paying like significantly higher interest rate like a jumbo loan? If you don't have a credit score, the government won't back it so its more risk on the bank and you're paying a much higher interest rate. Banks also don't keep the loans and package them up and sell them. If you don't have a credit score, not sure how they would do that. No score would qualify as subprime.

Most people's 20% down is also a loan. Plus, in addition to that $150K down payment, I can point to my savings account with more than the loan debt inside. The only reason I have a loan is for the tax relief, if not for that I'd have purchased the home completely. My home loan is under 2%.

That's a stupid reason to have a loan, unless you really like paying banks more than the government. It's still a loss to you with the tax deduction.

Certified stud.

It was easy in my case. As I recall, all my bank wanted to do was 3-way call a few bill collectors so I could authorize them to talk about my payment history.

I've leveraged credit quite a lot in my life and paid very little in the way of interest. That leverage has netted me quite a lot of money be it actual return on investment or being able to position myself to earn more, by moving countries.

this seems like the logical conclusion to me. I was scanning the comments for something like this and surprised that others didn't come to this conclusion.

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