FICO Credit Estimator, Get Your Free Estimate
By Pinyo • Aug 15th, 2007 • Category: Credit and DebtJust this past Sunday, I did a roundup about FICO credit score and credit card usage. Coincidentally, I came across Check Your Credit Score For Free post on All Financial Matters Blog today. This sounds cool, so I went to have a look (I will actually show you myFICO Score Estimator since it is faster and has no advertisement). The calculator basically asks you 10 questions to come up with an estimated range of your FICO credit score.
The questions are:
- How many credit cards do you have?
- Follow up: How long ago did you get your first credit card?
- How long ago did you get your first loan?
- How many loans or credit cards have you applied for in the last year?
- How recently have you opened a new loan or credit card?
- How many of your loans and/or credit cards currently have a balance?
- Besides any mortgage loans, what are your total balances on all other loans and credit cards combined?
- When did you last miss a loan or credit card payment?
- How many of your loans and/or credit cards are currently past due?
- What percent of your total credit card limits do your credit card balances represent?
- Please indicate if you have ever gone through any of the following negative financial events in the last 10 years: bankruptcy, tax lien, foreclosure, repossession, or account referred to collection agency.
This gives you a good idea of what factors determine your credit score. Here is a visual on how your FICO score is calculated from 5 general categories.
Note: I got the graphic from myFICO’s About FICO scores page.
Based on my answers, my FICO score was estimated to be between 755-805. That’s pretty darn good based on the ranges below:
- 720-850 — Represent the best score range
- 700-719 — You can obtain favorable financing terms with this
- 675-699 — This is still a decent score range
- 620-674 — Start to have trouble obtaining favorable credit terms
- 560-619 — Have more trouble
- 500-559 — You have to improve your score
Note: I got this table is from Journey To Financial Freedom.
Anyway, it is a good idea to review your credit report regularly. Since you can get 1 free credit report per year from each of the 3 credit agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion), you can stack your request 4 months apart and be able to review your credit report year round. Personally, I use AnnualCreditReport.com.
If a delinquent credit card was closed and charged off, do you count it here as having a credit card and as past due?
I have to improve my score, but I have adverse items which won’t go away - not even after 7 or 10 years - and I currently have no cards, loans, or credit. So how am I supposed to raise my score?
I think the delinquent & charged off is A LOT worse than past due account. I think you would have to answer YES to question #10.
“I current have no cards, loans, or credit”…do you have any debt? May be it is a good thing given your situation.
I just tried the Estimator and it gave me 540-590, which sounds just about right. My three CRA scores are 490, 550, and 620. (Go figure!)
But since I earn minimum wage and have no disposable income I can’t resolve those old debts, so my score isn’t likely to ever get back to normal.
It seems like you have a lot of experiences and stories to tell, have you thought about writing for money? I think you can do ghost writing or something similar and make some money that way.
Minimum Wage. This link may give you some good ideas: 40 ways to make money on the Internet