Well, your credit gets "soft" inquiries all the time. That's what all those offers come from. If you read them, the fine print will say something like "subject to credit approval." That's because they didn't actually pull all your info (your whole credit report for review), they just saw your 3 digit number and sent you an offer. Now, if you actually applied for one of these, you would authorize a "hard" inquiry, just like getting a mortgage or car loan. Soft inquiries do absolutely nothing to your credit; they don't even register as events. So no worries about all those offers.  ... View more

This is posted in a forum titled "Credit Score". It literally is filled with thousands of posts of people trying to deal with credit problems and getting advice back from the rest of the community. What possessed you to wake up this morning and declare: "Today, I will not only provide angry and useless input to people I don't care about, but the useless input will also be 100% inaccurate."? ... View more

My score dropped 2 points last month and I did NOTHING. Technically, if I did nothing, the only change to my credit would be that my average length of credit increased slightly, which is good, but... Try not to pay attention to those tiny fluctuations. They're always updating their algorithms or shuffling people into different groups for one reason or another. 2 points probably had nothing to do with a payment you made. Think of it like a stock: it can bounce around a bit, but as long as it's overall track is up, it's good. ... View more

You work really hard for what seems like a long time. If you've dug yourself a hole, there's no magic way out of it. My parents had about a 450 4 years ago. They had multiple credit cards worth of debt, mortgage, 2 cars, 2nd mortgage on the same house, and personal loans. They'd been missing payments because their monthly expenses were so high by this point that if anything abnormal happened for the month, they were screwed. Anyway. They switched to penny pinching and started working a few extra hours. All their extra money went to paying of debt. After about a year of this, they consolidated some of their debt into a new, lower interest rate, loan that was easier to handle. Then, slowly, little things happened. They paid off a car and had an extra few hundred dollars every month. That extra money just became a way to pay off other things faster. They kept penny pinching and working at it. It's been 4 years. They're not done, but have no car loans, no 2nd mortgage, and significantly reduced credit card debt. Their score is now 750, and they have a plan to have themselves completely debt free (except for the mortgage) in 5 more years. Live within your means and work hard. That's it. You can look up The Dave Ramsey Show on YouTube for some extra guidance. He's got a good baby steps program for people who are buried in debt with crap credit and apparently it works really well. I just discovered him yesterday while browsing for something related and his brand of help might be right up your alley. ... View more

Wow, crazy drop. Pull your credit reports and look for accounts that don't belong to you or other mistakes. If you really have no idea what could have caused a drop, it may be an error in the credit bureau's part. You'll either discover the error or see the thing you did that caused the drop. Either way, your reports are what your score comes from. ... View more

Your credit score is just a number. Your credit report has your entire history of credit that companies use to make your credit score. Once a year you can look at your credit report for free. Freecreditreport.com is popular for this. Credit Karma is another site that will show them to you for free. You look at them for 2 reasons. One, you can see what is positively and negatively impacting your score. But two, you can send corrections to the credit bureaus if you find mistakes. These corrections will be checked and approved or disapproved. The first time I ever looked at my report, I think I made 4 corrections. There were accounts on there that weren't mine, including a credit card that was opened before I was born. So yeah, they make mistakes and it's on you to keep an eye on it. ... View more

So you have a home, no kids, dual income, and are able to put a significant amount of money towards your retirement? Your life sounds tough... Your lifestyle is actually why you got hit so hard. Think about what the new tax laws are. The standard deduction rocketed up to $24k, but a lot of itemized deductions went away. The child tax credit was quadrupled. What that means is: low income families who don't have squat to deduct anyway (not even a house for property tax deduction) got a huge break because suddenly the first $24k they earn is tax free. On top of that, they have to pay for kids, but now the government is tossing them $2k per kid, which, believe me, doesn't come close to covering a kid for a year, but it helps. Well, who is going to fund all that help? Short answer: you. People with higher income, homes, savings, no kids, and just generally easy financial lives are the ones helping out. So be grateful that you get to do something like put lots of your money into savings because you don't need it, and don't complain when society asks you to pitch in. That being said, if you really wanted to, you could avoid your taxes by starting a business and/or looking for tax credit opportunities. For instance, I put solar panels on my roof while Obama was offering a 30% tax credit for it. 30%???! The government owed me so much money that it took them 4 years worth of tax returns to finally finish giving it to me. I raised the value of my home by $10k, and the power company cuts me checks every now and then. But if you do nothing to help yourself and are classified as having disposable income, then yes, you're forking over some cash to Uncle Sam. ... View more

These are "soft checks". You can Google what exactly that means, but these can be done without your permission. They also have absolutely zero impact on your credit, so no worries. ... View more

Hate to say it, but the answer is probably "wait". If you have low 700s, I'd guess you have 0 to 2 delinquent payments in your credit history, and if you do, they're old. You also aren't having any financial problems currently. So that leaves you to just wait on 3 things to slowly happen. 1. If you do have an old delinquent payment on there, it'll probably drop off soon. You can find the number of years that different types of credit marks stay on your report online pretty easily, if you're interested. 2. Your average credit age will increase. Every line of credit (mortgage, credit card, loans, etc.) you have has an age, and the credit bureaus average those ages as part of your score. So if you opened a credit card 3 years ago and got 2 student loans 5 years ago (and you're still paying them off), your average is (3+5+5)/3=4.3 years. You probably have more than that going on, but the point is, as time goes on, the accounts get older, your average goes up, and your score goes with it. Credit cards are great for this because they just keep getting older, unlike a loan, which will get paid off and then vanish from your average. 3. Your debt-to-income ratio will increase. Over time you'll probably start making more money. Simultaneously, any loans you have will get smaller and smaller. More income and less debt = better ratio. Score goes up. So yeah, just keep up good practices, live within your means, and don't miss payments. The score will take care of itself. When I got out of college, I had a 620. I didn't do anything spectacular after that. I just made payments on time, only had 2 credit cards, bought a house and am paying that loan, bought some cars and paid/paying those loans, blah blah. Now, 9 years later, without paying any special attention to my credit score, I have an 817. ... View more

You just print off and send in all the tax forms to their respective places (state and federal). All the supporting documentation you have (receipts and whatnot) stays with you. You file it away and if the IRS comes knocking (aka you get audited), they'll ask for that supporting documentation to prove the claims that you wrote on the forms were legitimate. You should hold 3 years worth of receipts because it usually takes the IRS two years to get around to auditing you, if they ever do at all. ... View more