Should I get a personal loan or a line of credit?

Assuming you have a credit card, I recommend you use it for the purchase.

It gets you two things at the very least:

1. Gets the purchases reported as credit utilization. If you handle that correctly, you can improve your score

2. Most card vendors give extended warranty and return policies that a retailer or manufacturer does not without extra fees.

I buy all my electronics using my cards and not only does that optimize my scores but I have been able to enjoy painless/better RMAs for defective products just because my AmEx card would have refunded me the money anyways and the retailers knew it (AmEx would have recovered it from them in the end so it was in their interest to resolve the matter within 30 days)

To help your score, use a credit card, and pay it in full each month. This should cost you nothing, and may get you some rewards depending on the card. Store cards don't really help the score as much as a regular credit card, and can hurt if you have too many.

You're likely not going to get the result you desire from taking out a Personal Loan or a Line of Credit to pay for the computer and you'll pay dearly as well.

When it comes to credit, utilization (the amount of actual debt you have on revolving trade lines) is negatively inverted with your actual score. You'll also pay interest when you're carrying a balance on any loan without any reason to do so (why pay the bank money for no reason?)

The most important things you can have on your credit report is:

1. Payment History
2. Utilization

If you open the Line of Credit and have no balance carried at all it should report favorably on your credit report. This will help your utilization, payment history, and "Average Age of Accounts" (AAoA).

In short, you can use the Line of Credit or Personal Loan to enhance your credit, but there is no need to carry a balance to do so (and doing so can negatively affect your credit depending on how the account is reported).

Buy the computer using a Credit Card for some of the reasons already mentioned if they appeal to you, but don't pay interest unnecessarily as a sort of credit tax. It isn't a valuable use of your money.

Don't get a loan, just to improve your credit score. Being debt free is one of the best things in life.

• Avoiding Debt completely: If you don't have emergency fund, first set it up. The remaining money, you plan to buy new computer. If you don't have enough money, unless it is not urgent, save money and purchase it with your own money.

• Still want to get loan due to lack of money: If you don't have emergency fund, first set it up. The remaining money can be used to pay for the computer. The shortfall, can be adjusted through loan. I would suggest you to get personal loan, instead of credit cards. I would suggest you to get Personal loan, which is non-revolving one time credit and try to pay off as early as possible. Avoid debt in future. Don't go for line of credit or credit cards, which will make you to get in to debt again and again.