Comments on: Enough Practice – Make Your Credit Score Perfect!

By: Sherilyn

Sherilyn — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 03:40:16 +0000

Give it lots and lots of time, honestly! And make sure that mortgage is shown as “PAID” and still available on all your reports! Also make sure there’s no negative information on your reports nor too many credit inquiries within a short amount of time. Those things could keep it low. Make sure that a balance is ALWAYS recorded on your cards (for example, before paying a bill in full, make sure there’s a pending amount or current charge ready for the next month so that whenever the bureaus pull your information, there’s something more than $0!) Keep utilization under 20% (ideally under 10%) and your score will keep soaring!

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:02:05 +0000

I was not aware the applying for credit and getting rejected more than once affect future credit score. It’s a vicious circle, when you think about it.

By: J.B.

J.B. — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 06:45:39 +0000

Good explanation of FICO. Thank you for posting this article.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:24:32 +0000

My home mortgage was paid off within 5 years of buying the home, I paid cash for my cars, I have NEVER been late on any payment or bill and have only a Visa Card, a Target card, a Macey’s and a Kohl’s card and pay the total balance every month. Zero debt. I’m 45 years old with what I would consider to be a perfect credit history: My credit rate was only 758 That doesn’t seem nearly high enough.

By: KDB

KDB — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:35:33 +0000

@ Leslie, good point, but credit is designed for borrowing money so you need to show responsible handling of credit to get a good credit score. I hear from so many people with debt who are hesitant to take action for fear of hurting their “good credit”, which is misguided. When did your credit score become some type of trophy?

By: Leslie

Leslie — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:28:27 +0000

This sounds wonderful, but what really is a bummer, to the point of being outright criminal is this insane notion that we should have credit cards with open balances in the first place. I’ve been diligently striving to eliminate as much debt as I can for over four years now and as the debt goes so does the credit score. I’m actually being penalized big time for clearing my debts. Now how is that anything but wrong?

By: Curtis

Curtis — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:37:37 +0000

Trying to get a perfect credit score is counterproductive, especially if it means having two or fewer inquiries on your report. The whole point of having a good score is to be able to use it to get cheap credit. To get apply for credit, you have to have inquiries. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should apply for every credit card/loan/whatever just because you can, but there’s also no point in limiting the number of inquiries on your report simply to have a “perfect” score.

It’s also pointless because the difference between credit offers for people 750 scores and people with 850 scores is minimal (when it even exists). At about 750-780, you’re going to get the best credit offers from banks. Anything above that is extraneous.

Curtis.

By: Clf

Clf — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:28:49 +0000

Notice how important paying our bills on time is here.This is why we always pay our bills the same day they come to our mailbox.

By: Retirement Savior

Retirement Savior — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:32:14 +0000

Now this is an article I am going to bookmark!

When you talk about diversification of credit sources, are there any that are more important to the credit firms? For instance, is it weighted more heavily to have a good history on mortgages, credit cards or car loans, or are they all weighted the same?