How to Check Your Credit Score for Free
When it comes to checking your credit score, we know there are many different ways you can go about it. The most important thing is that you are getting the most accurate credit score possible.
Why is Your Credit Score Important?
Your credit score has the potential to affect the interest rate you get when you take out a loan. This might be to pay off your car, house, etc. It’s important that you have a good credit score so you can get the lowest interest rate possible.
Factors that Affect Your Credit Score
Every place that you get your credit score from has a different way of scoring you. Here are some of the factors that they look at to arrive at your credit score.
The three factors that have the highest impact are your payment history, credit card usage, and the number of derogatory marks you have. It’s important to make sure you are paying off your credit card on time and for the full amount. These places also look at how much you are using your credit card. The more often you use it, the higher your credit score will be assuming you are still paying it off. Last, having derogatory marks can have a negative impact on your credit score. An example of a derogatory mark might be filing for bankruptcy. It’s important to keep these marks off your credit history.
Another factor that can affect your credit score is your credit age. Your credit score is an average of all your credit history over time. This means that the longer you have been building history, the higher your credit score will be.
One of the last factors that can affect you is how often you have had your credit pulled. It’s important to note that this is only taking into account your hard pulls. A hard credit pull is when someone pulls your credit with your permission. A hard credit check will only affect you only about 3-5 points, so you don’t need to worry about this unless you are doing it consistently. A soft credit check is done without your approval. This may be done by credit card companies when they say you are pre-approved. This does not have an effect on your credit score, so there is never a need to worry about soft credit checks.
Ways to Check your Credit Score
When looking for a place to check your credit score online, it’s important to look at the most accurate representation of your credit score. Each place that you check your credit might give you a different score. One way to find the most accurate number is to take many scores into account and find the average.
One resource you can use to check your credit score is Annual Credit Report.com. This site is a great resource that you can use to get your free credit report. This takes around two weeks to complete the check and you are able to re-check your score every 12 months.
Two other great resources are credit.com and extra credit.com. Both of these sites offer you a free way to check and track your credit score. They are more accurate than most credit tracking apps since they offer you full reports on your score.
If you are looking for ways to improve your credit score, you can check out our other blog which tells you how you can build credit from scratch.
