How to Vacation on a Budget

School’s out, the weather is nice and you’ve got some vacation days coming up – it’s time to plan a fun family vacation. But when it comes to a vacation, it’s common to go over budget with your spending. For many people, this can snowball into growing credit card debt, potentially even causing your credit score to take a hit. The good news is that it’s entirely possible to take a fun, memorable vacation without breaking the bank. We’ve stockpiled some of the most affordable vacation destinations and tips to save money in this post.

Affordable Vacation Destinations

Here’s a look at some of our favorite vacation hot spots for budget-conscious travelers:

The Grand Canyon: The Grand Canyon isn’t just an amazing sight to see, but with campsites available for as little as $15 per night, it’s also an affordable destination for the outdoor lover.
Fort Myers, Florida: Florida has a lot of great beach towns, and Fort Myers is one of the best. There’s the beauty and fun of the beach itself, affordable lodging accommodations and lots of other fun things to do in town.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: This is another fun, affordable beach town. Stay in one of the reasonably priced hotels on the beach and then soak up the sun during the day. There’s lots of other things to do in Myrtle Beach, like hit up the amusement park or stroll the beach shops.
Bar Harbor, Maine: If you want to head east, you probably won’t find a town more picturesque and affordable than Bar Harbor, Maine. It’s nestled right on the ocean and is great for the outdoor lover.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: The western Pennsylvania city has earned the nickname “Kidsburgh” for all of the great affordable family-friendly activities and attractions it boasts.
The Mississippi Gulf Coast: If the Gulf Coast is more of your thing, anywhere in Mississippi makes for a great vacation location, especially when it’s not unusual to find a hotel room for less than $150 a night.
St. Louis, Missouri: We’ll round out this list with St. Louis, a city that blends history, great architecture and fun. Take a ride up in the Gateway Arch for a great view of the city and enjoy all there is to do on the mighty Mississippi River – all for a great value.

Tips to Vacationing on a Budget

If you want to be even more budget-conscious, here are some tips for saving money with your vacation:

Cash in your rewards: Consider using airline miles toward tickets or hotel rewards toward night stays.
Shop around: Don’t just book hotels, airfare or rental cars with the first provider you see. Shop around and look for discounts or promotional offers. Additionally, consider traveling during the week, when hotel and airline prices are generally cheaper than on the weekends.
Cook yourself: While it’s always fun to go out to eat while on vacation, consider hitting up the local grocery store and buying food items for breakfasts and lunches. This can help reduce meal costs, which is often a big overhead expense on vacations.
Ride share instead of taking a taxi: If you’re not renting a car, you might need to use a taxi to get around town. Forget the taxi on your trip and instead utilize cheaper ride sharing services like Uber and Lyft.

Why You Should Not Check Your Credit Score on Multiple Sites

It’s always a good idea to keep tabs on your credit score. After all, this three-digit number holds a lot of power when it comes to your financial and borrowing potential. And while it’s never a bad thing to have an account with one of the various reputable credit scoring sites, you might be surprised to learn that you’re likely going to get a different credit score on each scoring website that you use. It’s why we always recommend that you stick with one credit scoring website – and that credit scoring website only.

Why the Difference in Scores?

Basically it all amounts to the formula that a particular website uses. All of them use a different formula, and while some are able to calculate a credit score closer to your actual FICO score than others, know that no one website you use will provide you with 100 percent accuracy. Try to think of checking your credit score online as a means of just getting a general idea of where you stand. It’s not going to be exact, but chances are it’ll be pretty close to what your actual FICO score is.

The Best Credit Scoring Websites

Generally speaking, the best websites to check your credit score are the ones that charge you a small fee to do so. It’s typically these websites that use the best formulas and have developed a formula that’s close to how the FICO score is tabulated. Just make sure that the site you use is reputable, like Scoresense.com, CreditCheckTotal.com and PrivacyGuard.com. With these sites, you’ll be paying for the accuracy of your credit score via a monthly fee after your discounted trial period expires.

You’ve likely heard of CreditKarma.com, as it’s one of the most popular free sites for checking your credit score. While this is certainly an option when it comes to monitoring your credit score, it doesn’t use as accurate of a scoring formula as the pay sites we mentioned above. Noting this, your CreditKarma score might be up to 20 points off from your actual FICO score. The aforementioned pay sites usually come in much closer to what your actual FICO score is.

Get Your Free Credit Report

If you log on to AnnualCreditReport.com, you’re entitled to one free credit report per year. While this credit report won’t tell you your FICO score, you can usually get a pretty good idea of where your credit stands just by looking at your record. We always recommend that all consumers take advantage of receiving this free credit report, as viewing it makes it easy to analyze ways to improve and can also sound an alarm if there are any discrepancies with it that need to be addressed.

Bottom line: It’s important to monitor your credit score, and the Internet makes it easier than ever to do so. Just make sure you do it with one website, and stick with that one website.

Tips to Choose the Best Website for Credit Score

Now that you know why it is important to check your credit score on multiple websites, let’s understand how to pick the best ones.

• Check the accuracy level of the website and how close they show your credit score to FICO score
• Pick only the best website for credit score that has a good reputation of providing a fast and efficient way of checking your credit score
• The right website for credit score is the one that charges a small fee; free sites often do not provide high levels of accuracy

Considering the above tips will help you choose the best website for credit score and take definitive measures to improve the same.

Protecting Your Child’s Credit Future

When it comes to credit scores and personal finances, there are several threats that people need to be aware of. There’s the actual financial aspect of credit issues, such as credit cards, debt, loans and more that need to be properly managed to maintain a good score. Then, there’s the aspect of identity theft, a serious issue that was highlighted last fall by the massive Equifax data breach, where about half of all Americans had their confidential information potentially swiped.

Yes, maintaining good credit is about a lot more these days than just forming good financial habits – and if you have children, part of your responsibility is raising them to learn from some of your generation’s mistakes. Among all the other responsibilities that you have as a parent, ensuring that your children have the knowledge to pave the way for a successful financial future is an important one. With that said, here’s a look at some ways you can help protect your child’s credit future, both from a monetary and identity theft standpoint:

Tips for Protecting Your Child’s Credit Future

Their name: Preventing identity theft arguably starts when you name your child. For instance, while it’s important for some families to follow tradition in naming their kids after their fathers or grandfathers, this can actually potentially implicate them when it comes to credit reporting. For instance, if David Jonathan Jones, Sr., has a negative item on his credit report, there’s a chance that David Jonathan Jones, Jr., may also have that same negative item on his credit report.
Beware of your online postings: Parents are proud of their kids, which makes sharing photos of them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks somewhat routine online behavior for them. That’s fine, but try to refrain from posting their birth dates, the city they were born in and other information a potential thieve could use to piece together information to steal their identity.
Freeze their credit: Experian estimates that about 25 percent of all children will have been victims of identity theft before they reach the age of 18. Noting this, consider calling up the credit bureaus and freezing your child’s credit. This ensures that nobody will be able to take out a line of credit in your child’s name unless they go through a rigorous process, which is very difficult for thieves to do. When it’s time to open a line of credit for your child, all you have to do is contact the bureaus and unfreeze it. To freeze their credit, you can go directly to the bureaus websites.
Discuss responsible money management: Certainly the other big aspect of ensuring a successful financial future for your child is instilling good money management habits. Start early in educating them on this important responsibility, and continue to speak with them about it as they get their first credit card, buy their first car and more. Irresponsibly managing money can lead to negative items on a credit report and significantly decrease their credit score, which can seriously jeopardize the things they’re able to accomplish in life.

How to Enjoy Summer and Not Ruin Your Credit

The kids are out of school for the year, the sun is shining and you’ve got time off coming up.

Yes, it’s summer – and aside from the above, the season is often synonymous with family vacations, festivities surrounding the Fourth of July holiday, and projects around the house and yard. Summer is also often synonymous with spending money. After all, now that the weather has turned for good, you can actually get outside and do things with your family and friends. But any spending done this summer (or really any time of the year) should be done so responsibly, as splurging can really cause your credit score to take a hit. Free spending is arguably more common in the summer months than at any other point of the year. Here’s a look at how to keep it in check:

How to Enjoy Summer Without Ruining Your Credit

Don’t charge vacations: Ideally, you should be saving for any planned vacations so you don’t have to worry about paying them off in the days that follow it. Some other ways to finance a family vacation are to cash in any rewards points with credit cards, airlines, hotels, etc. to help ease the cost burden. You can also use your tax refund to put toward it.
Keep your credit utilization ratio within 30 percent: Charging big things like family vacations, new patio furniture and landscaping supplies cause your total amounts owed to increase. This, in turn, can affect your credit utilization ratio, which is essentially your debt-to-credit ratio. If this is higher than 30 percent, your credit score will take a hit. For example, if you have a credit card that has a total credit limit of $10,000 and you have $4,000 worth of charges on it, you have a credit utilization ratio of 40 percent, which will negatively impact your credit score. In other words, charge wisely!
Charge to maximize rewards: Most credit cards today offer bonus reward points toward certain purchases or when you’re shopping at certain stores. Be sure you’re familiar with these bonus reward opportunities and use your credit card to maximize them.
Focus on frugal fun: Not much in life is free anymore, but there are ways that you can cut summer activities costs and still have a great time – whether you’re bumming around town or are on a family trip. If you’re on vacation, try to stay away from over-priced tourist trap activities and instead focus on the unique activities and features that make the area unique. Also, be sure to take advantage of what nature provides, like beaches, lakes, parks, etc.
Have a potluck party: Is it your turn to host the annual Fourth of July party? Instead of absorbing all of the food and entertainment expenses yourself, why not start a new tradition with a potluck party. You can still provide the main course, but all of your guests will help out by bringing drinks and other dishes. Potluck parties are still a blast, and they won’t have you stressing about paying off a sizable balance in the future.
Don’t underestimate sweat equity: Need a new deck? Want to freshen up the landscaping in your yard? While some of this work is better left to professionals, you can still likely save significantly if you can complete some of the preparation or cleanup of big yard projects yourself. This can make big projects much more manageable to stomach, cost-wise.

So don’t stress about money or your credit score this summer. Just make sure that you’re not biting off more than you can chew, regardless of how you’re spending.

How can Your Credit Be Impacted By Social Media

You’ve heard the social media horror stories before. You know, the ones about how a college pulled a recruit’s scholarship offer over offensive content that he or she posted to social media. Or how an employer didn’t make a job offer to a potential hire over similar controversial content that was shared via Facebook or Twitter. Soon, your credit score could similarly be affected by what you post on social media. It’s already happening in other parts of the world.

Today, the Fair Credit Reporting Act is in place to help protect Americans about what their data is knowingly used for when it comes to credit purposes. And to date, though the credit reporting bureaus can monitor your social media accounts, they can’t use it against you without disclosing it – so they don’t. Like we said in the opening, this could soon be changing because it’s already happening abroad.

Take Lenddo, for instance, a startup company based out of Singapore. Specifically, the firm incorporates a consumer’s social media data, among other online behavior, into determining their financial health and how reliable of a consumer they are likely to be. In other words, if any of the credit scoring entities detect suspicious financial-related posts on social media, they could use it against you with such a service. With the amount of consumer data available these days, it’s certainly well within the realm of possibility – and once it’s on the Internet, it’s there for good. Again, it’s important to note that this isn’t something that’s an issue right now, but it might be a good idea to refrain from posting about how broke you are, the big vacation you’ll never be able to pay off or bemoaning about the debt you’re in on the various social platforms. It might not be long before that can be held against you.

Social Media and Identity Theft

While credit scoring from social media isn’t yet viable in the United States, there is one current way that social media can burn your credit score: identity theft. Specifically, hackers can take what you’ve posted on your various social channels to put together pieces of your confidential information to the point where they can open lines of credit in your name. When this occurs, it can negatively impact your overall credit score. Most of the experts agree that there are a few key pieces of information you never want to post on social media:

Your mother’s maiden name: This is often one of the security questions that is asked to gain access to an account. So while it might be a nice gesture to pay tribute to your mom on social media, beware of the danger.
Your current location: We get how tempting it can be to post about the great vacation you’re on. But to any criminals monitoring your social channels, this just serves as an open invitation to attempt to gain entry to your home. It’s easiest to do when they know that the homeowner isn’t there.
Your birthday: Yes, it’s awesome to see your Facebook page blow up with well wishes on your birthday, but keep in mind that this is another key piece of information that a hacker will need to impersonate you.

The moral of this post is to be careful what you put on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and all of the other social networks are great for staying in touch with family and friends, but they do have a dark side as well. That dark side may be getting more complicated very soon.

Credit Report Vocabulary

The last time you probably took a vocabulary class was in high school, but chances are you’ve never taken a vocabulary class on credit reports and credit scores. That’s what we’re here for, as we’ve used this post as an opportunity to either review or teach you some of the credit report terms that you might not be as familiar with (or familiar with at all). You should already know what a FICO score is and what a credit reporting bureau is (i.e. TransUnion, Experian and Equifax), but you might not be as familiar with terms like “APR,” “co-signer” and “third-party collectors.”

Without further ado, here’s what we like to call Credit Report Vocabulary 101:

Credit Report Vocabulary

APR: APR, or annual percentage rate, is the charge applied to credit card balances that are carried over from month to month. Specifically, APR is the way credit is compounded.
Bankruptcy: A court proceeding where a consumer may be able to be excused of all debts owed. There are various chapters of bankruptcy, and all of them have a significant negative effect on a consumer’s credit score for several years, usually seven to 10.
Credit history: This is defined as a consumer’s record of their financial history, such as whether or not they repaid debts as agreed upon in the past.
Collection: A negative item on a credit report that hurts a credit score, an account goes to collections when it goes past due and a creditor wants to collect the debt that is owed.
Co-signer: A co-signer is someone who signs with a primary individual on a line of credit. If the individual were to default on the loan, the co-signer is then responsible for it. Co-signers may be necessary when the primary signee doesn’t have good enough credit to get approved for a loan.
Creditor: If you take out a line of credit, this is who you’re paying back.
Debtor: This is a consumer who has an open line of credit and owes money to a creditor. It’s likely that you’re a debtor.
Delinquent: If you fail to meet the minimum payment on a line of credit by the due date, then it will be marked as delinquent. Lenders often have monthly payment cycles, and will mark accounts up to 120 days delinquent. Delinquent payments may also be referred to as “late payments.”
Debt-to-credit ratio: Also often referred to as a “credit utilization ratio,” this is the total amount of debt a consumer has accrued versus their total credit allotment. For example, if a consumer has just one credit card with a limit of $10,000 and they’ve charged $3,000, then their debt-to-credit ratio is 30 percent.
Installment debt: Good examples of installment debts are mortgage loans and auto loans, as they have debt to be paid – often in monthly payments – at specific times of the year.
Over-the-limit fee: If you exceed your credit limit, you’ll be charged with this fee. Bottom line: Don’t exceed your maximum credit limit on credit cards.
Third-party collections: These are typically agencies that work with creditors to collect debts.

The Best Podcasts & Books For Your Credit!

If you’re among the millions of Americans that are looking to improve their credit score, then you likely already know that doing so takes commitment. But committing to a credit repair plan is only half the battle. First, you need to know how to create that ideal credit repair plan for you. While there are lots of resources that you can tap into for such purposes, a few avenues you may not have thought of include books and podcasts. We’ve put together a list of some of our favorite:

Credit Repair Podcasts

Perfect for downloading and listening to while you’re driving or just bumming around the home, here are five of our favorite credit repair podcasts:

The Credit Repair Show: Available via Player FM, this podcast is dedicated to how important it is for consumers to have good credit. It also offers several plans for credit improvement, including some that are designed to help raise a credit score by 100 points or more.
Planet Money: This NPR show is all about money and wealth management, and several episodes cover credit score-related topics. Episodes drop regularly, so there’s always new information to take in when it comes to your finances.
Listen Money Matters: This podcast doesn’t focus on credit as much as it does personal finance. However, how you manage your money and juggle your finances can play a big role in how your credit score looks.
Realtor’s Guide to Credit: Interested in improving your credit so that you can get a lower interest rate on your mortgage? This is the five-part podcast for you.
Money for the Rest of us: Host David Stein covers all aspects of personal finance and how to achieve the illusive financial freedom.

Credit Repair Books

Here’s a look at some of our favorite books on credit repair:

Raise Your Credit Score in 10 Easy Steps: This book by Angel Love focuses on sharing strategies to help consumers raise their credit score.
How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt and Live Prosperously: Debt management is a big part of boosting your credit score, but many consumers feel like they’re swimming upstream. This book by Jerrold Mundis is designed to help consumers get out of the red and into the black.
The Spender’s Guide to Debt-Free Living: Don’t think you make a lot of money and therefore can’t get out of debt? Think again. Ex-blogger Anna Newell Jones wrote this book about how she eliminated more than $23,000 worth of debt in 15 months, all while making less than $35,000 a year.
33 Ways to Improve Your Credit Score: As the book’s title implies, this book includes tips on credit repair. Some of the tips shared by author Tom Corson-Knowles are instant.
Credit Repair Kit for Dummies: Are credit scores and credit reports a foreign language to you? Then this could be the book for you. This book explains everything from how credit reporting works to specific steps on how to repair credit.

To end this post with some exciting news, our very own Nikitas Tsoukalis (Owner and CEO of Key Credit Repair) recently released his very first book: Opening Doors: A comprehensive Guide to great credit scores that anyone can use. get your copy today on Amazon!

Credit Score Myths Debunked

As a consumer, you should already know that a good credit score is a key cog to your financial future. But credit scores and credit reports can be complicated topics – and as is the case with most complicated subjects, misinformation is likely to spread. In this post, we’ve taken the liberty of debunking some of the most common credit score myths that we hear today. Have a look:

Myth 1: Making on-time bill payments is one way to help improve a credit score.
It’s important to make on-time bill payments, as it accounts for 35 percent – the single largest category – of the FICO score model. However, on-time payments won’t really help your score. Conversely, if you miss a payment, it can significantly hurt your score.
Myth 2: Closing unused credit cards will help improve a credit score.
This isn’t necessarily true – and for two reasons. First of all, credit history plays into your credit score, so closing an account may affect that. Secondly, closing an account can also affect your credit utilization ratio, or your debt-to-credit ratio. Generally, you want this to be 30 percent or less for the best possible score.
Myth 3: Checking your credit report will dock your score.
This is true, but only if it is a “hard pull.” Hard pulls are often performed by lenders during loan approval processes, and they may reduce your score by 10 points or so in the short term. Soft pulls don’t affect your credit score at all.
Myth 4: The more income you earn, the better credit score you’ll have.
That’s not true, as your credit score has no correlation to your earnings.
Myth 5: I only have one credit score.
That’s false. Though the FICO score is the most popular one, there are lots of different scoring models that lenders use.
Myth 6: Checking your credit report costs money.
While this can be true, it doesn‘t have to be true. That’s because by law, every American is entitled to one free credit report per year from the three major credit reporting bureaus (TransUnion, Equifax, Experian).
Myth 7: Credit reports offer fully accurate histories of consumer financial behavior.
Ideally, this is an accurate statement. However, it’s estimated that up to 20 percent of all Americans have some sort of error on their credit reports.
Myth 8: If there’s an error on my credit report, there’s nothing I can do about it.
The potential of an error on your credit report is part of why you should be checking it at least once a year. If you find one, you should immediately dispute it. Contact the credit bureau that issued the report to dispute the inaccuracy. It will be investigated and resolved within 45 days.
Myth 9: A large credit card balance won’t impact my credit score as long as I make the minimum payments.
That’s not true due to the credit utilization ratio that is taken into consideration. Generally, if this ratio is at or less than 30 percent, you’ll have a higher score than if it’s greater than 30 percent.
Myth 9: There’s no fast way to repair a credit score.
This may be true depending on the various factors that have led to a low score (i.e., bankruptcy, foreclosure, etc.), however, it’s important to keep in mind that credit scoring is fluid. Just paying down credit card balances to get within the 30 percent utilization ratio can yield a significant and speedy score increase in some cases.
Myth 10: If I have bad credit, it will be hard to get a loan.
There are opportunities to get loans no matter what your credit score is. However, being considered an at-risk consumer will unquestionably result in higher interest rates than if you had good or excellent credit.

How Your Credit Score Can Affect Your Relationships

Here’s a little something to get you in the Valentine’s Day spirit: According to a recent study by The Federal Reserve, your credit score could spell either happily every after or doom and gloom for your relationship. After all, money issues are one of the leading reasons behind divorce.

Per The Federal Reserve study, which analyzed close to 50,000 couples over a 15-year period, those who started relationships with a gap of 66 points or more between their FICO scores are found to be about 25 percent more likely to call it quits in two to four years compared with those who share similar credit scores when they begin dating. In fact, the study indicated that people tend to prefer dating people that they have similar credit scores with, though we don’t imagine that asking a man or woman for their FICO score upon meeting is the most appealing pickup line.

The good news is that if you do date someone with a different credit score than yours, sticking things out with them has proven to be beneficial. In fact, The Federal Reserve study found that those who are together for more than four years tend to work toward more similar credit scores over time.

Planning a Valentine’s Day With Poor Credit

So say your credit stinks, but you really don’t want to screw things up with the person you’ve been dating for a few weeks. The good news is that you can see notable improvements in your credit score within six months should you enact some credit repair tactics, such as paying down balances so that your credit utilization ratio is at or less than 30 percent, making on-time payments and disputing any errors you find on your report.

In the meantime, it’s still perfectly feasible to have a fun, romantic Valentine’s Day. Here’s a look at some ways to do it without having it take a negative toll on your credit repair strategy:

Have a romantic night in: You don’t have to go out to a fancy restaurant to have a fun, memorable Valentine’s Day. Instead, cook or order in for a candlelight dinner at your house. Later, you can rent a movie to watch while you cuddle up together on the sofa.
Use that gift card you’ve been waiting to spend: Remember that gift card you received to the nicest restaurant in town for Christmas? If you can’t bear staying in on the most romantic night of the year, Valentine’s Day could be a perfect time to use it. This way, you can have that fun meal out without spending a lot of – or any of – your own money.
Set some ground rules: If you’ve been dating for a while, explain your situation to your significant other and set some ground rules. Perhaps you two decide to forego gifts and just go to dinner. Whatever you decide, doing Valentine’s Day on a budget is a good habit to get into, especially when you’re trying to get out of debt and repair your credit score. Your significant other will likely admire your newfound financial responsibility.

Though The Federal Reserve study doesn’t overwhelmingly spell breakup or divorce if your credit scores significantly vary, it should serve as another motivator to whip your credit score into shape. Not only can a high credit score save you lots of money via low interest rates, but it can also potentially help your relationship.

A credit score is the key cog to some of life’s biggest purchases. That’s a fact that you should already know, as the better your credit score, the less interest you’re likely to pay on major purchases like mortgage loans and auto loans, among others. A poor credit score is going to cost you more long-term, that is if you’re even approved for the loan at all.

Every consumer should have at least a basic understanding of the importance of credit scores, similar to what we outlined above. But there are a lot of other neat tidbits about credit scores and credit reports that you might not be aware of. Join us as we take a look at 20 of the most notable ones:

20 Interesting Facts about Credit Reports

Only about one-third of Americans look at their credit report annually.
Everyone is entitled to one complimentary annual report from each of the three major credit bureaus, so there’s no excuse not to look at it annually.
According to a study from the Federal Reserve, the larger the gap between your credit score and your spouse’s score, the greater you are at risk for divorce.
Speaking of spouses and credit scores, you can now find a date based on credit score at CreditScoreDating.com. After all, they say that money issues are one of the leading causes of divorce…
The ‘Greatest Generation’ has some great scores. If you grew up during and in the aftermath of the Great Depression, it’s plausible to assume you’ve been well informed on financial responsibility. Hence, the Greatest Generation, comprised of those 66 and up, have an average score of 829.
Piggybacking off the last fact, Gen Y’ers have the lowest average generation credit score, coming in at 672.
It’s estimated that about 50 percent of all Americans don’t have one late payment on their credit report.
Payment history, which includes the frequency of late payments, is the single-largest credit score calculating factor at 35 percent of the FICO score.
Contrary to what you may think, you’re not entitled to a higher credit score based on the level of education you’ve completed.
Your credit utilization ratio is your debt to total credit allotment. For the best credit score, make sure your debt doesn’t exceed 30 percent of your limit.
Thankfully, for most Americans, their debt doesn’t exceed 30 percent of their limit. Only about 16 percent of Americans use 80 percent or more of their limit.
Insurance companies have observed that credit scores also impact risk. For instance, the lower the credit score, the more likely that person is to file a claim.
According to the FTC, about one out of every five Americans has an error on their credit report.
Employers can access credit reports when making hiring decisions.
Speaking of which, about one of every 10 Americans are passed over for a job because of their credit report.
If you’ve never had a credit card or an open line of credit, you won’t have any credit history or a FICO score.
Even someone with no credit score, however, can get a mortgage. It just has to be done via manual underwriting.
TranUnion, one of the three major credit bureaus, started in the railway industry.
If you max out a credit card, you may be docked up to 45 points on your credit score.
Contrary to what many people think, the money you earn has nothing to do with how high or low your credit score is.