I'm in a similar position (but in the UK) - no house/car/store cards/loans, just one debit card, one bank account. So my credit rating is probably quite poor, which is pretty silly.

It's rather like being treated as a suspect by the police because you have never been to court and found 'not guilty' of a crime.

Exactly. I've never understood that, and I've seen friends run into the ground for trying to play the game and get credit. It's just not a sound way to manage money, but you can't get along without it!

Obtaining credit need not be difficult. And you really don't need more than one credit card from a well-known company to do it.

Just charge everything you buy to your credit card. Write and subtract every purchase price in an account book, and pay off the credit card bill at the end of the month. Do this for a couple of years and you will have a sterling credit rating without creating a lot of debt.

Jan, this is a good suggestion, but paying it off at the end of the month doesn't look as good as paying it off over time - creditors want to see that you can make consistent payments to pay DOWN a loan, and if they are glancing at a credit summary, they will completely miss all the ones that get paid in full each month (since the only thing summarizes is payoff over time).

A better alternative would be a car loan w/ a co-signer or deliberately carrying a small debt for six or more months. It doesn't matter how MUCH you have paid back, what creditors look for is that you did it over time and that you did it ON time each month.