Credit isn't there to help you. The sooner we realise this, and stop being tricked by it, the happier we'll all be.
Credit reports only report the bad. If you get a credit line (Say, some stupid credit card) all it shows is that you have one on your credit. If you're late, or default, then it shows details. Nothing on your credit report says that you are good at paying bills - it only says if you're bad at it.
And you know, lots of shit can happen. You can lose your job suddenly, or get into some un-insured injury and lose some money. You could be robbed. Anything can happen that can seperate you from your money. This is what happened to me and the house - half of my income took off with a 25 year old hair-farmer. I didn't see that coming.
And now my credit is fucked. Also, I'm 20 payments behind on my house. And getting caught up simply isn't possible.
I think this is very dangerous and misleading info. Credit, in fact, is everything and credit reports show good info, not just bad. It shows history of consistant payments. Not sure what reports you are looking at but there are reports you can get that show "good" history.
i use CreditKarma.com to monitor my credit
But Good luck getting by with 0 or bad credit to start out your life. You won't get a home loan, you won't get a car loan, people won't even rent to you, you'll get passed on a job, you won't even be able to get a cell phone etc...if you happen to get a loan you will pay rediculous interest rates and you may be required to put down rediculous deposits/downpayments.
And don't(anyone) give shit about paying everything in cash because it's not realistic, it's ideal, but not realistic. And paying cash doesn't help you in the long run with credit, which yes, you do need.
My credit got fucked too(of course it's my own fault regardless of what happened) but i have worked my way up from a 520 to a 672 in 2 years and climbing. I've paid off almost 25k in debt. By the end of this year i expect to be back in the 700's.
Awptickes is right thoough, score is not everything...
i never missed a mortgage payment, condo fee payment, car payment, utility payment or any other payment other then a credit card payment(tried debt settlement, DON'T DO IT). You can see this on a credit report. Shit does happen and most people don't want to be in those situations and are looking for ways to make things right. Doesn't mean they will make bad renters.
Shit my dad loaned his best friend over 100K with a promise of repayment from some law suites his friend had pending. Short story is they never paid my dad back and he had to file for bankruptcy. My dad had 5-6 Credit cards with 50k limits and almost perfect credit score before that. 5 years after that he couldn't even open up home depot card, i had to do it for him.