So I figured that more folks than just the airmen that I was in tech school with could use this information.
"If you don't have a plan and you're not charting your progress you're wasting your time and mine." That's what I used to tell my athletes about their weight training. Your financial future is no different, if you don't have a plan, all you have is talk.
Thankfully there are some great (free) tools out there to help you get on track. In little over a year I've paid off $18,000 on my home equity line of credit, $6,000 in credit card debt, and $4,500 in student loan debt. It hasn't been easy, but it feels so good it was worth it.
The first tool is www.creditkarma.com Yes it's free. Yes they will know a lot about you after you enter in your information, but you'll also have a pretty powerful tool on how your journey out of debt affects (positively) your credit score. Yes, their will be credit card offers on just about every screen, but to date I haven't had one pull a gun and make me fill it out.
The first tool at CreditKarma shows you a composite credit score they call your "Transrisk" which is described as: "The standard Credit Score on CreditKarma is the TransRisk New Account Score provided by TransUnion. This risk score represents your likelihood of deliquency or non-payment of credit obligations. This score is based on information in your TransUnion credit report and ranges from 300 (minimum) to 850 (maximum). The score is calculated using TransUnion's proprietary model for assessing the credit risk of existing accounts and was constructed using a selected group of factors drawn from your credit records at TransUnion." I've found that mine is about 40 points lower than what my actual FICO score was when I was refinancing my home, but it was within the ball park.
The second tool on the sight is your "Auto Insurance Score" which gives you a general idea of what your auto insurer is using to give you your rate. If you're not calling at least every other year for auto quotes, you might want to start. Even $20 a month is substantial savings over the course of a year.
The final tool is your "Vantage Score" which their website describes as: "VantageScore is a new credit scoring model created by America's three major credit reporting agencies to support a truly consistent and accurate approach to credit scoring. This new score provides lenders with nearly identical risk assessment across all three credit reporting companies. Your VantageScore on Credit Karma was calculated based on information in your TransUnion credit report and follows a familiar academic scale for ease of understanding: A (901-990), B (801-900), C (701-800), D (601-700), F (501-600)."
The site also has some useful tools for showing you how your credit is affected by a late payment, reduced balances, and closing accounts. A great place to start.
No comments:
Post a Comment