The Impact of Your FICO Score and What it Means to You

It doesn’t matter if you are hoping to purchase a brand new car, or if you are looking at cell phone plans; if the situation calls for the lending of money, someone is going to be taking a look at your FICO score. Your FICO score is a three digit number that anyone with money uses to decide if you are a good financial risk. You want your FICO score to be 750 or better. The higher your score is, the more money creditors are going to be willing to lend to you. Not only will they be willing to lend you more money, but you will also get a lower rate of interest than someone with a really low FICO score. There are three different credit bureaus and each one has their very own FICO score for you.

Looking at the sample FICO score report will help you better understand how to read your own credit report. The number that you are going to be most interested in is the one that is printed in a large bold font. This is going to be where your FICO score is. In the United States, FICO scores usually run from 300-850. The higher that the number is, the better it is for you. In addition to an overall FICO score, you will also see that there is another FICO number that is used for very specific categories.

Different financial institutions provide information about you to the credit bureaus that use this information to create a credit report about you. Each agency uses an equation to determine your FICO rating. As you can see from the sample, the information used in the credit report comes from all over the place. It is up to you to go through your own credit report item by item and make sure that it is accurate. Discrepancies do happen, but it is up to you to report them and make sure that they get taken care of as quickly as possible. If your current FICO score is really low right now, there are things that you can to do slowly start making it better. You can usually completely change your FICO score in about 10 years.