You are correct that history of repayment helps the score. Someone who borrows $5 once and pays it back once is less trustworthy (from a credit sense) then the

You are correct that history of repayment helps the score. Someone who borrows $5 once and pays it back once is less trustworthy (from a credit sense) then the person who borrows $5 every month and pays it back every month, as odd as that feels in the abstract. Credit scores are intentionally a blend of elements. Generally the advice is to make one or two small credit purchases a month and pay them back - just enough to show consistent mild activity. Some people like using gas for this since credit cards are more fraud protected, but that may or may not be a "small purchase" for you. When we talk about poverty, we want to seperate out the individual case (Bob is broke) from the group case (Mary's tribe is broke.) Fixing Bob's problems looks very different from fixing the tribes problems. (That doesn't mean the root problem is unrelated.) Financial literacy education is unfortunately overrun with scams.