Building Credit

I am sure many of us have heard horror stories about a good person with a good job and no debt trying to get a loan for a house or some other purchase and they are turned down or some other negative thing happens because they do not have a credit history. If you don't have history it is going to be hard to have a good credit score simply because it is a report of your history. Simple approaches can work very well for the problem of building credit. My first experience was very simple it was an overdraft protection on my checking account. I decided to use the overdraft a few times and pay it off promptly even sometimes in the same day. Doing this over the period of only a few months let my credit presence be known and later when applying for a loan I had a good credit score from one little account. A few things to consider about building credit:

You don't have to have large purchases
You don't have to carry a balance for large periods of time
Take advantage of offers early in life for small things to build for later things, students especially have many opportunities with student accounts or credit cards

I do not advise carrying any large amount of debt other than for "necessities" of life principally an affordable home. Building credit helps with future goals such as being able to get a home loan.