Someone who has little but doesn't spend too much will generally have good credit. No. Living within your means makes you wind up with no credit. Utilities an

Someone who has little but doesn't spend too much will generally have good credit. No. Living within your means makes you wind up with no credit. Utilities and landlords rarely report your on-time payments, after all. You have no history, and you need to prove yourself instead of the lenders assuming you are responsible. And I'll mention here that different places hound folks with a recent bankruptcy, despite a variety of debt issues that led to bankruptcy. And you can't even measure responsibility from whether or not it is medical debt. I struggled in my early to mid 20's because my then spouse wound up with a major mental health issue. He wound up on disability, and before (and sometimes after) would take money from our account or out of my purse. I know in hindsight that I should have taken different actions, but I didn't think about it in the midst of constant stress. And at least I was finally able to leave, some years too late, but that shouldn't be required. I left due to unhappiness, not because of the illness. It would be worse if it were a child's sickness that caused the struggle - the bills might be in the spouse's name instead of yours. None of that would show up on a credit report.