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If you’re a normal person, your parents didn’t help you build credit as you were growing up. Most 18 year olds don’t have credit, which can make life quite difficult.

Here’s how you can build your credit in record time, even at the tender age of 18. This methodology applies to anyone who doesn’t currently have a credit score, regardless of their age.

And I’m assuming that you already understand the importance of having good credit.

Building credit is easy, Daniel-san, if you know how to do it. Wax on, wax off.

That’s it. There are but four steps to awesome credit.

The inverse is also true. Do the opposite of these four things if you want to totally mess up your credit score and make your life unnecessarily difficult.

1. Establish a Clear Credit Identity

The first section on your credit report is about your identity. And if your identity is the same across all of your credit reports and credit applications, then your credit will be much more useful for you.

There are three organizations, called credit bureaus, that keep your credit records. Your name and physical address need to be the same across all of them.

If you are in college, temporarily traveling, or in the military, then use your parent’s address. It’s much easier to keep your credit profile up-to-date if you don’t have to change it all the time.

Your name and address should be the same on your bank account records, driver’s license, and credit reports. Like so:

John Doe
1234 Quiet St
Springfield, IL 62629

Make a decision now on how you want it to look. If you include a middle initial, ALWAYS use the middle initial. If you have a hyphenated last name, ALWAYS use a hyphenated last name.

On your address, decide if you will write out the street name (like Avenue vs. Ave.), and decide if you will use an apartment number or suite number.

Here’s what not to do. Don’t use your name and address differently in different places. For example:

John L Doe
1234 Quiet Street
Springfield, IL 62629

Or worse yet:

John Louis Doe-Chandler
1234 Quiet St. Apt. 15
Springfield, Illinois 62629-3148

You get the point. The reason for this is that records are recorded by computers in databases.

And when your credit profile is used for anything – be that a loan application or a credit application – you want it to automatically find a match for you.

Even though a human could easily piece together these different types of addresses and names, it makes it very difficult for computers to find matches. And if they can’t find you, you’re quite likely to get denied.

2. Get Credit Accounts

This is where the fun begins. According to the FICO credit scoring system (ie the credit score system that over 90% of banks and lenders use), these are the factors that determine your credit score:<