Paid $30 for a secured card and it jumped my score 40 points in 3 months

I put down a $200 deposit on a Capital One secured card last fall and used it for nothing but gas each month... paid it off right away every time and my credit score went from 520 to 560 without doing anything else. Has anyone else seen that kind of jump from just one secured card?

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ivan_murphy801mo ago

Started with a Discover secured card put down $500 and set up autopay for a small streaming subscription. My score jumped about 35 points in the first 4 months just from having that positive payment history show up. The key was keeping my balance under 10% of the limit even though it was tiny lol.

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the_rowan1mo ago

lol @ "even though it was tiny" like you're out here managing a Fortune 500 budget with a $500 limit. 35 points in 4 months is actually solid though, most people expect miracles overnight. Having autopay for that streaming sub is the real pro move too, it's basically free points if you don't touch the card for anything else. Just don't let yourself get tempted to actually use it for takeout or you'll be right back in the same hole.

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