Card to improve credit score and earn rewards (if possible)
I do not currently have any credit cards, and have not for about 10 years or so because I have been living outside the US. I moved back a few months ago with my husband, who is European, and we have a joint checking account with a local credit union. Being new to the US he has no credit history, and my credit score has fallen into the “fair” range because I have no credit accounts or loans currently (I do have a good repayment history from previous loans and credit accounts).
I’d like to get a card that can help me build my score back up, and add my husband as an authorized user to help him build credit. We don’t need to make any large purchases and plan to keep the balance paid off and ideally earn even a little bit of cash back or rewards in the process. We do travel to and from Europe once or twice a year, but don’t use hotels or have a preferred airline so I’m not sure if travel rewards would be useful for us or not. We can get a no fee, low interest rate credit card through our credit union, but it doesn’t come with rewards of any kind and since we’re planning to keep the balance paid off the low interest rate isn’t necessarily too important.
Thank you so much for your guidance!
Current cards: none
• FICO Score: 657
• Oldest account age: n/a
• Chase 5/24 status: n/a
• Income: $50,000
• Average monthly spend and categories:
• dining $200
• groceries: $400
• gas: $100
• other (shopping, entertainment): $400
• Open to Business Cards: No
• What's the purpose of your next card? Building credit while earning cash back or rewards (if possible)
• Do you have any cards you've been looking at? No
• Are you OK with category spending or do you want a general spending card? Ok with either, we mostly spend on groceries, gas, and yearly or twice yearly travel