What's your credit score?
By katsmeow1213
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
United States
September 2, 2015 6:06am CST
Do you keep track of your credit score?
We are concerned about our credit right now because we have some big plans to get a nicer house and some newer cars. We're working on getting a newer car right now, the nicer house hopefully within the next couple of years... though if I have my way we'll get it sooner than that even!
We know our credit isn't great, we are working to improve that. It's pretty easy to see your credit report every year, but I had no idea what my credit score was.
Last night hubby found an app called Credit Karma that will tell you your score for free, so I checked it out. He and I both have the same credit score, and it's a bit lower than we'd like it to be. Credit Karma also tells you what it is that is causing negative effects on your credit. For me it's the amount of debt (student loans) and that my credit history is not very old. It does show that I've made all my payments on time so that's a plus, but not a big enough plus.
Have you looked at your score lately?
3 people like this
4 responses
@phyrre (2317)
• United States
2 Sep 15
I use Credit Karma, and I just love it! We're young, so building credit is really difficult. We do things intentionally to build it, like having open credit cards and keeping a rotating interest on it (I spend $50 a month on my card and put that aside to pay it each month) just in an effort to boost my score. It's worked pretty well. In the past year and a half, we've managed to go from average credit to one of us having good credit and the other with almost great credit.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
2 Sep 15
I work with a certified credit counselor, and I asked her about credit card balances. She says it's best to have credit cards, but not use them at all. The credit card only reports the monthly balances to the credit bureaus, and it reports on time payments. Using a little bit of the credit won't hurt, but having a balance on the card isn't as good as having no balance at all.
1 person likes this
@phyrre (2317)
• United States
2 Sep 15
@katsmeow1213 I don't leave a balance on there. I do that so that I have a monthly bill being reported as being paid on time every month, but I pay off the balance every single month so there's no interest, nothing being rolled over. :)
@phyrre (2317)
• United States
4 Sep 15
@Susan2015 I was told it was a good way to do it, especially since we're so young and we were late a couple times early on (when we first were out on our own) so this would help boost our scores and counteract those early late payments for the few years until they're finally expunged from our record. :) It's worked for us so far, and we make sure to check monthly just to see that it's not going the wrong way. 
@rusty2rusty (6763)
• Defiance, Ohio
2 Sep 15
My credit score isn't bad. it isn't that good either. As i have a $60 hospital bill I need to pay off. i am doing that slowly. It was much higher than that.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
2 Sep 15
One negative bill won't hurt your credit too terribly. We've actually got a few of those.
@Blondie2222 (28611)
• United States
2 Sep 15
Yes I look at mine all the time and I use Credit Karma also. My biggest debt is my student loans also. And I paid off everything else that went to collections. Mines not the greatest score either but i am making payments on my student loan cant wait til its done with.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
2 Sep 15
Me either, but we only just started making payments on ours. It will take a long time to pay it off.
