I was hovering around 660 for awhile. I dont have any negative marks or late payments on my report. It's because my credit utilization rate was around 55-60%. I've been working hard over the last 6 months to pay off as much debt as I could and today I checked my report. 705! This is a big deal for me and I hope that in another 6 months I'll be in the mid to upper 700's.

 

Yup, utilization accounts for 30% of your FICO score, and recently a lot of other non-fico 8 scoring systems have been making it account for even more. They think high utilization is the biggest factor for defaulting.





You ARE looking at FICO and not some other scoring system right?

 

I check it with Credit Karma

 

CK uses their own scoring model called Vantage. It is not FICO. I do know that their scoring weighs utilization heavier than FICO's scoring system.



You can read up on it here:

https://www.creditkarma.com/credit-scores

 

credit karma tends to show higher than actual from what ive seen.



high scores mean people feel good. people feel good and they tell other people about the app.

 

Most credit card companies will give you a free credit report and it wont go against your score. It'll be a FICO score too so check that and compare it to CK.

 

just request your report here:



https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action



it doesnt tell you the scores unless you pay but at least you can see if there is anything holding you back.



everyone should do that at least once a year anyways.



i found out a loan i closed several years ago said i had a late payment that i didnt have. they just hadnt cleared it in time, i proved i paid well within an acceptable range so they removed it from my credit report. jumped up quite a few points from that.

 

I'm retired and have a lowest income than I ever did. But don't have any loans. I get the biggest hit because I have no installment loans.



Currently at 814. You can get the free credit reports through Credit Karma.

 

FICO likes to see a mix of credit. Installment loan, credit card, department store card, mortgage. It doesn't mean you must get them all because no one should have a constant loan debt. But, for maximum points, it likes to see them being paid, and a year or two old.





FICO also likes to see 1-4% utilization of all credit cards rather than 0%. But that doesn't mean you should carry a small balance for the rest of your life to gain those few extra points.

 

I use credit cards for almost all my buying. But pay them off every month. I got a new card that had a really low limit, <500 IIRC and ran it up to $400 one month. The FICO crashed about 30 points but came back after they saw it was paid.