Doug5150

You have no credit, because you have no credit record. It is bad, and now you're faced with trying to get credit in a tightening credit market, which isn't going to help either.

If your BF/husband has credit, you'll just have to go on that for now.

Get the secured credit card through a local bank (not a mail-order one, local bank terms are better), charge stuff on it, and don't pay it off every month! Let it carry a balance, and pay the credit card fees. Paying it off is the WORST thing you can do for building credit. Make sure you always make the minimum payments, but make payments of different sizes, and carry a balance every month. If you need something that will nearly-max out the credit card, then use the credit card instead of paying cash, and pay it back down to the "normal" balance on the next bill.

After a year of the secured card, ask the bank if they'll drop the security requirement. If they don't, ask them every 6 months until they do.

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There are people who insist you're better off not ever going into debt at all.
That may be true in principal, but being in debt considered typical in modern life and a credit rating is basically a measure of the debt you can maintain. You must go into debt to get a credit rating, there's no other way to do it--but that doesn't mean you have to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in the hole. Just maintaining a credit-card with one or two paychecks' worth of debt on it can accomplish a lot in this regard.
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