Try to establish credit for your wife

[Stats]

why does anyone's wife need their own credit, as opposed to the credit worthiness of a married couple?

I am not going to touch this one. Definite keyboard restraint in process.

 

I am CPA and gritting my teeth at ths one.

[Dan R]

aosnow is it the weather or what? I have to agree again with you. Why indeed would individual credit matter once you are married. She can use a joint card anytime without having a seperate credit account. It becomes important after a seperation. I am curious to know what others think would require her to have seperate credit?

[Stats]

My wife and I recently purchased a new car. This was RAV-4 for her to drive. The fiancé manager was great and he understood that I wanted to build a credit history for my wife.

 

Her credit score is 0

Mine is 750+

 

So he added about .5% to the rate and added my wife as a borrower.

 

Fort $3 a month it was worth it.

[Dan R]

I understand how to start building the credit but just don't understand the need. The car registration can be done any way you like. I'm just trying to see if there is a need for us to work at building seperate credit for her before she works. After all credit is about your ability to pay.

[Guest aosnow]

stats, can you explain why it is important?

[david_dawei]

This is an interesting issue.. Most 'americans' would see the need to establish credit for both.. and as someone pointed out, the woman would like this in case of eventually separating and being on her own...

 

Since I don't see the need for this separate credit, I'd like to hear the reasons as well...

[C4Racer]

stats, can you explain why it is  important?

Gotta agree with aosnow and Dan, not sure why it is important. It seems it would also send red flags to USCIS if you have not had AOS yet.... They want to see you as developing a mutual relationship, not separate.

[tonado]

My wife wants to be independent. With her own credit card, she said she can buy whatever without first asking me.

[david_dawei]

My wife wants to be independent. With her own credit card, she said she can buy whatever without first asking me.

Sounds to me like your marrying a western woman...

[Dan R]

My wife wants to be independent.   With her own credit card, she said she can buy whatever without first asking me.

Sounds to me like your marrying a western woman...

David haven't you noticed that when Asians see something they like, they first absorb it then multiple it times 10.

[se_lang]

credit is always individual for a rating you don't have a joint credit score it is very important to have your own credit history... example my coworker had perfect credit and his wife had very bad credit however she made 3 times as much money as him so they could use his credit score and her income. If you don't establish a credit rating for your SO then if you die tomorrow she is not going to have an easy time getting it. Oh and make sure you teach your SO about the pitfalls of screwing up a credit rating.

[MarkD]

why does anyone's wife need their own credit, as opposed to the credit worthiness of a married couple?

Here are some of the reasons:

 

If you die she will not have credit. Your income will be gone. If there is inadequate life insurance or if the will has some probate problems, she couldn't borrow money while the will is figured out.

 

If you get a mortgage, the mortgage company will look at the lower credit score and use a mix of that lower score with the higher score.

 

If the husband has bad credit, the wife could get better credit than him.

 

There are different rules in each state about how the credit works (community property states).

 

Overall these reasons aren't exciting and maybe not even compelling. To establish credit for a spouse is really a personal decision.

[david_dawei]

My wife wants to be independent.   With her own credit card, she said she can buy whatever without first asking me.

Sounds to me like your marrying a western woman...

David haven't you noticed that when Asians see something they like, they first absorb it then multiple it times 10.

Althought I assume they used the abacus for that computation !

[david_dawei]

why does anyone's wife need their own credit, as opposed to the credit worthiness of a married couple?

Here are some of the reasons:

 

If you die she will not have credit. Your income will be gone. If there is inadequate life insurance or if the will has some probate problems, she couldn't borrow money while the will is figured out.

 

If you get a mortgage, the mortgage company will look at the lower credit score and use a mix of that lower score with the higher score.

 

If the husband has bad credit, the wife could get better credit than him.

 

There are different rules in each state about how the credit works (community property states).

 

Overall these reasons aren't exciting and maybe not even compelling. To establish credit for a spouse is really a personal decision.

This all assumes they actually want to stay in this country after you 'go'...

[MarkD]

This all assumes they actually want to stay in this country after you 'go'...

Not "This all," just the first reason that I gave. Additionally, I'm sure there are reasons for getting credit that I didn't list. I just gave a few reasons that I could think of.

 

About the dying reason, in theory, she should wait a little a few months before she decides what she wants to do. She shouldn't make the decision to stay or go just after you are gone. Then it would be a purely emotional decision.