Sometimes I like to break away from talking strictly about lingerie, just to give you, what I believe, is useful information I happen to come across.
When I was talking about my friend and her credit dilenma on an earlier blog, I got a lot of good response to it. So now I am going to share what I have found about how a credit score is measured.
Think of your credit score, a.k.a. FICO score, as a grade in risk repayment. The final grade is measured as:
35% of your score depends on how timely you are with paying back your loans and debts.
Another 30% assesses how much you owe lenders versus how much open credit you have - this is called your utilization ratio. For example, if you owe $1,200 on a credit card, but your limit is $10,000, you're in okay shape. But if you owed $5,000 or $8,000 with the same limit, you're score will be lower.
Fifteen percent of your score depends on the length of your credit history and how long you've been borrowing from whom. This is why it is good to keep some old credit card accounts open (but keep the balances as close to zero as possible).
The last 20% of your score is split evenly between what kind of debts you have (showing you can juggle different types of loans, such as a mortgage and a student loan) and how much new credit you've been shopping for (Hint: Don't shop for new cards and a new car in the same month).
To find out more about your credit score, go to myfico.com.
