Leaving me in the grays because you can’t do a simple google search? Great job.

Take the advice of Warren Buffett. Low cost S&P 500 ETFs. Just read any of the articles on the first page.

Did you even TRY to research and validate your claims? The first 2 links on google disprove your narrative:

Except your score is a calculation of all the factors that statistically add to your risk of defaulting. Inquiries and unusual usage both statistically raise your likeliness of default.

Shill for what?
Not sure why understanding how modern financial institutions work makes me a shill.

Taking on extra jobs and giving up everything except the bare essentials is not how you grow wealth in the long term, which is how one gets to financial stability.
This “article” is nothing more than “look at how great I am, now click over to my finance site and sign up”.

Your attitude towards credit scores leads me to believe you are a higher risk to a lender.

If it is revolving credit it lowers your total utilization and length of credit history.
Closing s non revolving account should not hurt an otherwise healthy score.

Anything over a 760 does not matter to a bank.

Taking out a large one time sum on a credit line that is abnormal to your previous credit history puts you into a higher risk to default. The dip in your score reflects that.

Credit scores are a risk assessment value. They tell a lender how much risk it is to lend you money.

Utilization is based off of carried balance. If you pay a purchase off during the grace period (usually 28 days) then it should not affect your utilization.

How is it a scam? It is risk assessment.

Are you trying to say the risk assessment system should not be designed to favor the party that is taking all the risk? 

Paying off a non revolving account will not hurt your credit score. If your score went down it is for other reasons.

Sell your car, put your kid up for adoption and move into a hostel. Easy peasy!

These articles don’t serve much purpose to actually helping people with financial stability.

Because high income tech workers are attracted to Urban centers.

How about avoiding overdraft fees by, you know, not overdrafting your account?

Your version of “reporting” finally convinced me to remove Kotaku from my RSS feeds. Thanks Cecilia.

Affiliate links to a charity site? That is low.

Affiliate links to a charity site? That is low.