Credit Score Scale

This Credit Score Scale explains what your actual score means and helps you make sense of how it will effect your life. If you read enough articles about the scale you will become thoroughly confused about what the numbers really mean. The reason for this is that there are no rules that carry over between all financial institutions as to what constitutes a good credit score. There are close similarities, and we can use that to get an estimated idea of where you stand.

Most sources say that the scale ranges from 350 to 850.

Less than 600 is bad, and you will have a very hard time getting any kind of loan.

600-640: You will be able to do things with this, but you will have very high interest rates.

641-680: This is ok. Not the best, but far from the worst and you will be able to get decent interest rates on loans, but still not entirely desirable.

681-720: This is good. You will always be able to get loans easily, and the higher end of this has a good chance of low interest rates.

720 and up: This is the credit score goal! You should be getting the best possible rates and be able to do anything you want with your credit.

If you’re low on this list, don’t despair, you can build these numbers up!

Where does my credit score come from?

Three major credit reporting agencies take down information from creditors about your financial activities. This information is gathered into reports which you can obtain once a year for free. These reports contain information like late payments, length of your history, the types of credit used among other things. When you apply for things than include a credit check, such as loans or rent applications, your report is taken by a financial institution and used to create a credit score. They then consider this number, deciding whether the number means you are likely to make timely payments and be a desireable customer. You can judge what they’ll likely think of your situation using the scale above.

Hopefully this information will help you decide where you need to be and if you need to work on improving your credit report. Remember that all financial institutions do judge these numbers independently, but you can use this credit score scale explained above as a general guide to get you where you want to be.

Establishing yourself on the credit score range can be even more difficult than improving from a bad place, and even more important. When you have no real history to speak of, companies will look at that and see you as a wild card, which can be worse than having a bad rating. This will make things more difficult for you, and expensive. But if companies are so leery of you, how do you go about building up a history? This is where the difficulty lies, but things are not impossible. There are things set up specifically for doing this, of course, because everyone has had to establish themselves on the credit score range at some point in their lives.

So how do they do it, and why does it even matter what your rating is, anyhow? This comes up for you in so many ways that it’s impossible to get around it. Your rating is looked at when you go to apply for loans or cards of course, but also any kind of insurance, rentals, and even well paying jobs. It doesn’t just affect whether you’ll get approved for these things, either—it also effects what kind of rates you’ll be offered. If you have a good rating, you’ll be able to pay better lower interest rates on all of these things, like loans, cards, and insurance. That saves you money and overall makes your life easier.

Now, how do you go about establishing yourself on the credit score range. You do NOT go out and sign up for any accounts that will take you and rack up charges. You want to be responsible and careful with your actions so that you establish a good rating right from the beginning and don’t have to worry about trying to improve from a bad place, later, because that is very difficult. So, the first thing you do, is make sure you have a budget set up so that you know all about your actual finances and what is coming in and going out each month.

The easiest and most straightforward thing you can do now is get a secured credit card from the bank to establish yourself on the credit score range. These types of accounts are meant specifically for people trying to build up some new history, and are a great way to get started. You can get them from your local bank. You’ll need to have some money that will go into a savings account and be used as collateral while you have the account. This will also set your limit on your card. Make sure before you sign up that you have the option to switch to an unsecured card after twelve to eighteen months of on time payments. For the best results for your rating, you want to use under thirty percent of your limit each month, and always pay it off at the end of the month. This is best for building up a good history. Also, before signing up for the account, make sure that they report to the three major credit agencies, or you’re not doing yourself any good.

With this straight forward plan you can go about establishing yourself on the credit score range, and get yourself set up for a good looking place on the scale for years to come.

The internet is chock full of information on how to improve your rating, and that’s all good and great, but once you’ve gotten yourself up there, how do you maintain a high credit score? There is a lot to know about what makes up a rating, how the range works, what to do to get to a good place, and what a good rating even is.

First let’s take a look at the credit score scale and see what a high rating would be. Truly, anything over six hundred and eighty is going to be considered great for most things, but a truly high rating is going to be over seven hundred, with seven hundred and thirty being pretty much pristine.

Once you’ve reached such great heights, it is inevitable that at certain points in your life you will dip below these magical lines, but keeping that dip to being a momentary situation, and making sure it doesn’t go too far down, does take some financial know how. The first thing to understand is that your rating is made up of weighted information from across your report. Things like the age of your history, the amount of credit available to you versus how much you’re using, late and missed payments, and the variety of payments you are making are all things that are going to effect maintaining your high credit score. But it’s one thing to look at the facts on a report that make up your rating, it’s another to look at what it is you’re actually doing to get there.

In terms of the age of your history, if you have any cards that are older than others, it’s good to keep those accounts open and active. This doesn’t mean that you have to rack up charges, in fact quite the opposite is what you want to do to maintain a high credit score. You want to use your cards very lightly. It is recommended that you only use under thirty percent of the limit and you pay that off at the end of every month. This keeps things active, but keeps you from racking up debt.

This is also good for another factor that helps you keep your rating looking good—the amount of credit available to you put against the amount you are using. The less you are using, and the more available to you, the better off you look. This shows that you are in control of your finances and aren’t just borrowing every chance you get, and is a small thing that gives a good boost to your number.

Making any kind of late payments is really going to drag you down and is probably the worst thing you can do to your high rating, except having missed payments altogether—this would definitely be worse. Making sure that you have a budget laid out and are keeping on top of any and all payments is the number one thing you need to do to maintain a high credit score, and is in fact so important, that in most articles this is the only thing people will you to do because it’s so important to just focus on not missing payments. This sets you back on your rating, and takes a lot of time to rebuild from. Remember, above all else, never miss a payment.

If you have a good amount of loan history, or card history, but not a lot of the other then something you can do to give yourself a bit of a boost is build some more payment history in the area you are lacking. Your score is made up of a history with both of these types of payments, and the people with the best scores are going to have both. Don’t do this at a time when you want to use your high credit score to do something soon though as your rating will take a dip right when you sign up for something new. This dip is temporary, and the payments over time will make you look even better than before, but is definitely something to be aware of when you are trying to keep yourself looking good financially.

This may seem like a lot to take in, but if you break it down they’re really just small things to keep in mind when handling your finances so that you can maintain a high credit score and are much better than ever having to worry about improving it down the road. Be careful with your finances, stick to a budget, always make your payments on time, and you should be able to avoid any major dips on your rating.