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What is High Credit?

B. Miller
B. Miller

High credit can refer to a couple of different things. First, this term may refer to a high available credit limit on a credit card or loan. It may also refer to a good credit score built up after years of responsible credit management and paying bills on time. Both types of high credit are desirable in most cases, though one should of course only take loans or make credit card charges that one can afford to pay.

High credit loans or credit cards may mean different things to different people. For example, a couple of thousand dollars may be a sizable credit limit for a college student, while others may have credit limits of hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. This type of high credit is subjective to each individual person and their relative income. It is best, of course, for each individual to consider the realistic amount of credit that he or she can handle before applying for a higher credit limit or a larger loan.

Man climbing a rope
Man climbing a rope

Having a certain amount of open credit can be beneficial to one's credit report, and it can be helpful to use to make big purchases, or to pay off each month in order to boost a credit score. Having too much open credit can be seen as a risk to lenders, though, so it is necessary to carefully balance the amount of open credit one has with one's level of income. Credit card companies will sometimes raise the credit limit on a card without asking the cardholder first, which is fine in most instances, but it is important to know each credit limit and to ask the credit card company to stop raising it if it gets too high.

Of course, high credit may also refer to a high credit score, generally considered to be a FICO score of 700 or more, up to a maximum of 850. There are various ways to boost one's credit score, but it includes always paying bills on time, having a mixture of revolving and installment loans such as credit cards, student loans, and a car loan or mortgage, and managing money responsibly by never writing bad checks, for example. A high credit score is one of the most valuable things to have, since it can help when applying for a job, an apartment, health insurance, or anything else where one's finances will be taken into account, such as for additional loans or more lines of credit.

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