Having a FICO score and knowing what it is is essential to managing your finances. The is the number that every credit bureau will use to determine if you have good or bad credit and they will assign you a credit score. The system used to find this number is very in depth and can be quite confusing but if you know how it all works, it can also be used very much to your advantage. Knowing how the FICO system works is the key to keeping you credit above par.
Before anything, you need to know the basics of the FICO system. The first place to start is understanding the FICO ladder. A FICO score is somewhere between 300 and 850. Didn’t know that? You should. If you didn’t, that’s okay, because after today, you will know a lot more than most people do about FICO scores. The best spot to be is somewhere between 720 and 850. This is wonderful. Again, if you’re not in this range, it’s okay, anything above 675 is still good. If it’s below that, then… you can worry a little. But just a little because there are still ways to bring it up. The lowest score is 300 and if this looks like yours then you are in trouble, you should worry, and I cannot help you.
A FICO score is comprised of many different parts. To determine your FICO score a bureau looks 35% at your paymnet history, meaning how many payments are delinquent or late. If a payment is past thirty days late, it is reported to a bureau and they will then lower you FICO score. Another 30% of you FICO score depends on you credit/debt ratio. Not know what this means? That’s ok too. Let’s say you have a credit card with 10,000 dollar limits. If you have used 4,000 of that, your debt-credit ratio is 40/60. This is ideal.
Another fifteen percent of your credit score is based on the length of your credit history from the time you first borrowed money to the present. Ten percent is based on the kinds of credit you use. Some kinds are weighted more heavily. The final ten percent of your FICO score is determined by how much credit you have used recently.
There are also a couple of unique things that can affect you credit score such as how much money you owe to a court judgement or money you owe on a tax lien. These have much larger penalties, as does any kind of bankruptcy as you could imagine. The number of accounts you have open also affects your score even though it may improve the debt/credit ratio. Each time you make an inquiry on your credit, it also affects your score. Some pulls hurt more than other though. For example, if you are checking your personal credit, this is considered a soft pull and won’t really affect your score.