re: What’s your credit score?

Mine is 765. It was 785 3 months ago and it dropped when I paid off a 19k loan. Make it make sense.

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Maybe you should learn how your score is actually calculated, and it might not blow your mind.

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Stop pretending like you know how they calculate that shite.

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Maybe you should learn how your score is actually calculated

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I’m guessing the score is meant to lean towards information to maximize the lender’s experience:

If you’re the type of person that never makes a late payment but goes the full length of the loan, that is ideal for a lender.

You pay shite off early…good but not ideal for a lender.

You consistently make late payments, carry over balances, and maximize interest…best case scenario for a lender.

You can’t make payment and repossession occurs…worst case for lender.


Still with that mindset, the numbers don’t make sense.

Here is a break down of what factors in and how much.



Payment History - Just make your full monthly payments and you'll be perfect here. Paying off early doesn't affect this at all, but will affect your length of history.

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You consistently make late payments, carry over balances, and maximize interest…best case scenario for a lender.

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- that'll tank your score quick.

Amounts owed - This is your utlization %. To keep it simple, lets say you have two credit cards with $900 limit on one and a $100 limit on the other. So 1000 limit total. They check how much you owe on all of them once a month. So if you have 100 dollar balance between the two cards when they check you will have a 10% utilization. If you pay your cards off daily you will always have a 0% utilization. If you figure out what day of the month they check it and pay it off in full the day before, you will have 0% utilization.

Length of History - Basically the average of how long you have had credit. This is where not having credit cards hurts people. Because it's revolving credit that you can keep forever if you don't close the card. Once accounts are closed (car loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc) they fall off eventually and your history will go down. So, paying off early hurts your history if it makes your car loan fall off. But just thinking about credit cards, say you opened one 10 years ago and one today, now you have (10 years+0 year)/2 accounts = 5 year credit history. That means you really don't want to close old accounts, or any unless it just makes sense to otherwise.

Types of credit - they want to see diversity. Mortage, car loans, installment loans, credit card, etc.

New credit - This is what hurts you a bit when you do hard pulls when applying for new cards, loans, etc. But it falls off after 2 years.


None of this has to do with whether you work or if you pay the utility and phone bill. And if you pay everything in cash and never take out loans... well your credit history is lacking and that's going to affect your score.

The score and what they consider is all a way of measuring how trust worthy and potentially risky you are with borrowing money. If you have borrowed lots in the past and always paid off responsibly you are more trustworthy than someone that never or rarely borrows it. etc. If you are opening new cards constantly it seems you are hurting for money, so risky, etc. and on and on.

Per Credit Karma

TransUnion: 769
Equifax: 757

Took about a 20 point hit recently after closing on a mortgage for rural property.

Thanks for the breakdown

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Thanks for the breakdown

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No problem. Like I said most CC apps and bank apps break this down for you and will show you information on what's affecting your particular score. You can usually find your utilization percentage, length of history, etc. Some give more info than others. My Sofi bank app actually gives lots of info on all my accounts, whether they are closed or not, etc.

And if you really want to know alot, check out John Ulzheimer.

Main thing is:

1. Pay it off in full
2. Keep Utilization low (increase your cc limits with requests every 6 months to help with this)
3. Don't close old accounts unless you just really need to.
4. Only open a few accounts a year (not a huge deal, just don't go crazy)
5. Have a few different types of loans.

Do all that and you will eventually have a great credit score, don't do number 1 alot and it will take time to get it back in good shape. The rest can be fixed pretty quickly outside of length of history which just takes time to build.

Dave Ramsey 's advice is only good for the irresponsible. It's terrible for everyone else.

807ish. it was around 820ish, but dropped some when I paid my truck loan off a couple months ago.