What is the Difference Between a Credit Report and a Credit Score?

Whether you are buying a home or looking for a quote on your auto insurance, chances are that someone is going to be checking your credit. Sometimes this means looking at your credit report, and sometimes it means looking at your credit score. Sometimes it means looking at both. It’s easy to get a little mixed […]

4 Reasons to Keep Tabs on Your Credit Report

You probably understand how important your credit report is. You know that it’s a record of your credit activities, and that it’s used to establish your credit score, and that others look to your credit report for information about how fiscally responsible you are likely to be. However, even if you understand the importance of […]

3 Things You Can Learn from Your Credit Report

Reviewing your credit report every few months is an easy way to combat identity theft. Identity theft is a profitable form of crime because once you have someone’s personal information you can open up credit lines in their name and use those lines to buy items that you never intend to pay for. (Just make […]

Bad Credit Score Immunity

Your credit score takes so many factors into account, some of my readers feel like anything they do could potentially send them on the road to a bad credit score. In several follow up emails to my post on ways to improve your credit score, I had people comment that they worked hard in one […]

12 Steps to Improve Your Credit Score

Improving your credit score quickly is possible if you’re talking about a small improvement but to raise your credit score significantly you’ll have to put in some effort. Credit Score Strategy & Tactics The best long term way to improve your credit score is to make regular timely payments and keep your balances low.  This is a […]

How to Improve Your Credit Score

Improving your credit score is key to borrowing money at lower interest rates. As I covered in my last post about how to lower your credit card interest rates, a low credit score can cost you a lot of money. That post shared strategies from David Bach that you could use right away to pay less in […]

myFICO Review

myFICO is the consumer credit score site of the creator of the FICO credit score system, Fair Isaacs.  You have several options on the myFICO site for finding your FICO score online and monitoring your FICO score. myFICO does charge for access to your score but offers a free credit score trial to let you […]

How Your Credit Score Impacts Interest Rates

Your credit report plays a major role in the interest rates you qualify for when you apply for a home loan. A good credit score could save you a lot of money in mortgage interest charges over the life of your new loan or refinance. Credit Scores Affect Interest Rates I saw this first hand […]

College Graduates & Credit Scores

Getting insurance after college was yesterday’s topic, along with a few tips on managing your credit after graduation. I had a few follow up questions come in about credit reports and credit scores so today I’ll talk more about how your credit can affect your life after college and what you can do about it. […]

Free Credit Report from Experian

Experian is offering a free credit report for 30 days to American Express cardholders.  I logged into my credit card account and requested my credit score after I got an email about it this week.  I hadn’t checked my credit report in some time and was pleased to see it was still healthy. American Express partnered with […]

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