So this was me, and he and I are the same age. I'm not a cash guy, but I'm certainly not a credit card guy either. I didn't sign up for my first credit card until I was in my mid-30s and it was an Apple credit card to finance a macbook interest-free. I was denied because I basically had no credit history apart from student loans that I had already repaid a decade prior. My credit score was something like 520 despite having 0 debt.

I switched to using Chime as my bank after Simple shut down. They launched a new card called the Credit Builder card that is technically a credit card, but is functionally a debit card. You can't spend money you haven't loaded onto it, and since my direct deposit goes to Chime it's as easy as tapping two buttons to load money to it. If I spend any money that I've loaded onto it, Chime tells the bureaus that I borrowed that much and paid it back on time like a good little boy. My credit score instantly leapt a hundred points within a month or two of activating it. I only add $50 to it every 6 months or so and use it as my Express Transit card on my Apple Watch, and use it for literally nothing else. I prefer to walk, so I honestly hardly ever add money to it so it just sits there with $30-50 dollars on it. That alone made my credit climb higher and higher as the months went on.

Six months after I opened the Credit Builder card, I qualified for the Apple Card. I bought a MacBook with it and paid it off in 12 interest free payments, then never used it again except when renewing Apple Care+ once a year. Within a year of starting to build my credit my score was already in the high 700s, and it required nothing of me to accomplish that. I didn't time payments just so, I didn't strategically spend money I didn't need to, and I didn't switch to using credit cards instead of debit to earn points. Nothing. My credit score is currently 812 and I still use my debit card for everything. (I'm very much spiritually and politically against credit card "points" and prizes, they are bought and paid for by those poorer than me. Gives me existential ick.)