<prompt> Human: Hi PF, been a long time lurker of reddit and just recently made an account. I am 18 atm and I have a Chase Freedom Card with a 500 limit. I have a part-time job that makes 5k a year and am also a full-time student. Basically, I am wondering what exactly credit is and how it works. I have seen people on here get denied for cards with established credit scores. I applied for my first card with this Chase Freedom, and was approved yet had no prior credit history. Did they look at my debit card history? Furthermore, I figured that I could just use my card every month and my score would slowly increase. Now, Im reading things about utilization and the premise is getting a little difficult to follow. As of right now, my cc balance has not exceeded 103 and I pay it in full every month. How am I doing so far? What steps can I take to ensure I build my credit quickly and efficiently? What should I try to avoid? I want to learn as much about credit as possible. Thank you for any and all advicetipsanswers! :  <response>: The way I understand it is credit score measures how trustworthygood you are when it comes to borrowing money and paying it back e.g. how consistent you are in paying it back, how many times are you late at paying it back if ever, how crazy do you get with your spendings, like do you max it all out or do you keep it at a reasonable amount, how often do you apply for credit, etc..You generally want to keep your utilization at 30 MAX across all the lines of credit that you have. Meaning if you have 4 cards and theyre at 1k each, your total credit limit across everything is 4k, and thus you should keep your total debt at 1200 30 of 4k at any given time. Maxing out your cards and having a high utilization rate is risky for banks because they dont know if youre going to pay it back, so thats why it affects your credit score, but only for the months that it is high. Once you pay it completely off which is what you should always do! or at the very least down to 30 or less, your credit score will improve.How often you apply for credit also affects your credit score because it makes lenders think, Why is this person trying so desperately lately to get more credit lines? Are they getting rejected one after the other? If so, why are they getting rejected? Why do they want so much money? Are they in a difficult situation right now in which they need to spend a lot of money? Doesnt that mean that they might not pay it back?? Every time you apply for a new credit card, they do a hard inquiry on your credit score. These hard inquiries lower your credit score because of all the questions I wrote above. : Hard inquiries stay on your credit score for 2 years, meaning after 2 years they disappear from all the things that make up the credit score calculation.The higher your credit score, the more trustworthy you seem to lenders. Thus banks and whatnot are more willing to lend you money in the form of loans or of credit cards. Youre also able to qualify for larger amounts the higher your credit score is!As for your questions, youre doing well so far! Keep it up. For now, to keep up with the good work, always pay in full and always pay on time. The older the credit lines, the higher your score as well it shows commitment, which again, goes into the whole trustworthy thing!. Over time, your credit score will naturally increase if you keep it up this way.Hope this helps! 