Will a couple screwups with my credit early in my life (age 18) weigh me down in the long run?

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Here's the deal.

I had just turned 18 and sent in at least 7 applications for credit cards before knowing it was bad for credit.

One time I went over my credit limit on one credit card and paid the fee and never had it happen again. (this was my 3rd month of owning the card).

I had 3 credit cards from major companies to begin with and got rid of one after problems with the company (Capital One) an my dad has me as an authorized user on his Shell Gas Card. I was an authorized user on my moms Old Navy Card.

Will keeping my balances low, paying everything on time. (I've never once been late), help repair everything in the long run, down the road at least 4 years when I need to get an apartment, auto loans, etc?

Will a couple screwups with my credit early in my life (age 18) weigh me down in the long run?

You do not say how old you are now. At least you are aware of the potential problems that not taking care of your credit can cause. If you are paying everything on time now and continue to do so in the future your FICO score will come back up even though you have some dings. You are entitled to a free credit report (without the FICO score ) one a year from each of the three credit agencies(annualcredit report.com) It will tell you on the report how long a discrepancy will be there ( could be up to 5 years ) If you want to know your FICO score you can pay for it when you are requesting your report for under $10.00. Make sure it is a FICO score as one of the companies (Trans Union I think ) offer a different scoring system and most places look at your FICO score when determining credit worthiness. Also you are correct in thinking that too many inquiries for credit will reduce your score but for only a year. One thing that allot of people don't realize is that closing accounts can hurt your credit as well, the only accounts you want to close would be any accounts with a annual fee, otherwise leave the accounts open but just don't use them. If you don't trust yourself then by all means close what you don't use.

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Will a couple screwups with my credit early in my life (age 18) weigh me down in the long run?

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