Whats your credit score?
Its important financial information to have.
But did you know there are actually multiple answers and no single way of calculating a credit score?
Acredit scoreis a way of distilling your credit history into a number.
That number allows lenders to determine the risk theyre taking on by granting you a loan.
The two most common ways of estimating it are the FICO Score and the VantageScore.
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What Is a Credit Score?
Finally, that data is run through an algorithm to determine your score.
FICO Score
The FICO model was devised by the Fair Isaac Corporation.
There are more than a dozen versions of the FICO score.
FICO8, which was introduced in 2009, is the broadest and most widely used by lenders.
The other versions differ slightly based on what theyre used for.
You have several options here.
you’re able to also get a free FICO Score from Experian atfreecreditscore.com.
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Debt can get out of control fast.
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That doesnt mean you have to let your debt run your life.
there are multiple versions.
With FICO, you need six months of data to be visible to their algorithm.
There are also slight differences in the ranges of scores.
So, if theres one thing you should prioritize, its to make payments on time.
How to Get Your VantageScore
Just like FICO (are you beginning to see a trend?)
there are several ways of going about this.
The first is through your financial institution.
Bank(provided by Experian).
While many peoples VantageScore and FICO scores are similar, thats not always the case.
In fact, they can vary by nearly a hundred points all because of the differences in the models.
