{"id":572,"date":"2008-08-08T09:56:40","date_gmt":"2008-08-08T13:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?p=572"},"modified":"2008-08-08T09:56:40","modified_gmt":"2008-08-08T13:56:40","slug":"what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Good Mix of Credit?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having a &#8220;Good Mix of Credit&#8221; is basically ten percent of your FICO score &#8211; so what does that mean exactly?<\/p>\n<p>Contrary to popular belief, it does not mean that you should have an Amex, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Card. Instead it means that you should have different types of credit lines open to improve your credit score.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For example, a good mix of credit would include:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A mortgage<\/li>\n<li>A car loan<\/li>\n<li>A couple of major credit cards like Amex or Visa<\/li>\n<li>And one or two department store or gas credit cards.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, if you don&#8217;t have all of these loans, it does not necessarily mean that you need to immediately run out and get them to raise your credit score. Remember, the types of loans you have only make up <a href=\"\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/the-fico-score-breakdown\/\" target=\"blank\">ten percent<\/a> of your score overall. <\/p>\n<p>This is where your credit score vs. your financial sense has to come into play. Yes &#8211; it might raise your credit score for you to go out and get an auto loan. BUT, if you can afford to  a used car outright, then it makes more sense financially to  the car <em>without <\/em>an installment plan, and avoid paying interest on the loan. <\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind that opening new credit accounts temporarily lowers your score. If you do decide that you want to open a couple new cards to improve your credit mix, them make sure you only open one account every 4-6 months or so. That will give your score time to recover before each new account.<\/p>\n<p>The most important factor in your credit score in undeniably carrying a low (or zero balance) and making on-time payments. Having a good mix of credit is like the icing on the cake &#8211; not the foundation of your score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having a &#8220;Good Mix of Credit&#8221; is basically ten percent of your FICO score &#8211; so what does that mean exactly? Contrary to popular belief, it does not mean that you should have an Amex, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Card. Instead it means that you should have different types of credit lines open to improve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[214,35,36],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.10 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Good Mix of Credit?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is a Good Mix of Credit?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Having a &#8220;Good Mix of Credit&#8221; is basically ten percent of your FICO score &#8211; so what does that mean exactly? Contrary to popular belief, it does not mean that you should have an Amex, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Card. Instead it means that you should have different types of credit lines open to improve [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-08T13:56:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Christina\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Christina\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/\",\"name\":\"What is a Good Mix of Credit?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-08-08T13:56:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-08-08T13:56:40+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/5ca5f29104921f3a0a9ab7578fb8d9df\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What is a Good Mix of Credit?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog\",\"description\":\"Just another WordPress site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/5ca5f29104921f3a0a9ab7578fb8d9df\",\"name\":\"Christina\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/author\/christinam\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What is a Good Mix of Credit?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What is a Good Mix of Credit?","og_description":"Having a &#8220;Good Mix of Credit&#8221; is basically ten percent of your FICO score &#8211; so what does that mean exactly? Contrary to popular belief, it does not mean that you should have an Amex, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Card. Instead it means that you should have different types of credit lines open to improve [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/","og_site_name":"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog","article_published_time":"2008-08-08T13:56:40+00:00","author":"Christina","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Christina","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/","url":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/","name":"What is a Good Mix of Credit?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-08-08T13:56:40+00:00","dateModified":"2008-08-08T13:56:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/5ca5f29104921f3a0a9ab7578fb8d9df"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/what-is-a-good-mix-of-credit\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What is a Good Mix of Credit?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/","name":"Ask Mr Credit Card Blog","description":"Just another WordPress site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/5ca5f29104921f3a0a9ab7578fb8d9df","name":"Christina","url":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/author\/christinam\/"}]}},"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}