Understanding Your Credit Score

In the last post we talked about accessing your free annual credit report online. If you’ve taken the time to access your report, you may be wondering what the numbers in your credit report actually mean or how you can improve your score. We’ve put together links to three resources that will help make sense of the numbers and take steps toward making sure that your score is as high as it can be.

UTFCU’s Know Your FICO score handout
This document provides a quick overview of FICO score basics and helps answer questions such as: What will hurt my credit score? What does not affect my credit score? How can I improve my credit score? Where does my credit score come from?

Your Credit Report (balancepro.net)
This article provides some great background information on your credit score, credit report regulations, fixing errors, and how to fight identity theft.

Reading Your Credit Report (utfcu.org)
This article explains how to read a credit report and what types of information to expect in each of the different sections of the report. This article is part of a set of resources for parents on UTFCU’s new financial education page. Take a look at some of the other available resources by clicking here.

Do you have a financial education link or a money-saving tip you would like to share? If so, please leave a comment below!