I'm moving to the US from the UK in January. I have just opened a bank account and have applied for a Capital One secured credit card to help start building credit.
Would also taking out a secured loan - whereby I 'pay' the bank the amount and they 'loan' it back to me - help my credit score any further?
My understanding from other questions is I should keep my 'utilisation' at around 1% - 10% to help build my credit score, and pay the bill every month. I understand how this would work with a credit card but how would this work with a loan?
Edit: A few people asked in comments about longer term plans, I'll detail them here:
Primarily - I would like not to raise any red flags with rental applications or with utility providers as soon as possible.
Then, unless there is a good reason not to, I'd like to resume my current habit of making all purchases on credit cards and paying it off in full every cycle as soon as possible.
It's possible that in 2-3 years I would be looking at taking out a mortgage.
Finally, in the next month I need to purchase a car, but my current plan is to pay cash for this.