It's a little complicated. My credit score has been consistently higher than my wife's score, and but she has never carried a credit card balance in her life. You get high credit score marks for making banks money, but not borrowing so much that they get nervous.
It's more than payment history. I avoided credit until I bought a car, and I made a point to pay my car loan off early. Seemed like a way to demonstrate that I was responsible with my money.
The month I paid off that loan, my credit score dropped precipitously.
In 2006, my wife and I bought a home, and had to get two separate loans to make it work, because our credit scores weren't great at age 26, since I generally avoided credit.
As soon as we opened those two loans, our credit scores jumped to the highest they've ever been.
That and other patterns I've watched over two decades are why I believe credit scores are entirely about how well you pay the banks' game.
You made my point — they care about payment history, not paid off. You’d be better served taking a $500 personal loan from a credit union and paying the payments every month.
