what's the difference between a credit score and a credit report
my name is Dash with Mind Over Finance and for those of you who might be
confused by the end of today's short video you'll know the difference between the two
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I like to think of your credit report as a story
so it's this detailed account of all your debts and loans that you've been
responsible for as an adult and how you've handled them so from the time you
turn 18 years old the story of your credit report begins because this story
constantly changes based on how you deal with these debts and loans throughout
the course of your adult life it's kind of like a never ending story let's look
at a formal definition according to Wikipedia a credit history is a record
of a borrower's responsible repayment of debts a credit report is a record of the
borrower's credit history from a number of sources including banks credit card
companies collection agencies and governments a borrower's credit score is
the result of a mathematical algorithm applied to a credit report and other
sources of information to predict future delinquency
this is what my credit report looks like and it details all of the key
information about my loans past and present here's a glimpse at some of the
info you might find in a credit report things like payment history late
payments public records collections and whether or not you're paying your
accounts the way you and your lender agreed on other information you might
find on a credit report includes things like how much debt you're carrying the
length of your credit history and the age of your accounts and it keeps a
critical tally of how you're making your payments month after month
if your credit report is this ongoing story this ongoing log of your debts and
loans think of your credit score as a snapshot your credit score takes all of
these factors from your credit history it weighs them measures them and oils
them down into a convenient bite-sized number that summarizes just how credit
worthy you are at a single moment in time the moment that a lender pulls your
credit let's look at a formal definition for a credit score also according to
Wikipedia a credit score is a numerical expression based on a level analysis of
a person's credit files to represent the credit worthiness of an individual a
credit score is primarily based on a credit report information typically
sourced from credit bureaus
whether it's coming from Equifax Experian or TransUnion your credit score
is going to be a number and at the time of this recording a number between 300
and 850 this chart comes from the experience what the credit score numbers
represent with 300 being very poor credit numbers in the low to mid 600's
being fair credit and high seven hundreds and up being excellent credit
and these are the score ranges based on Vantage scores I'm sure we'll talk about
those in another video and the range from very poor credit to exceptional
credit is very similar with FICO scores
so what's the difference between your credit score and your credit report your
credit report is the story with all of the juicy details and your credit score
is the snapshot the quick and convenient number that sums up your credit history
at a single point in time a few things to keep in mind your credit
score and your credit report are not set in stone so if your credit report is
dodgy and your credit score sucks it doesn't have to stay that way and the
only reason I'm saying that to you is because I had to dig myself out of a
pretty deep financial hole so it's always a good idea to know what your
credit score is and what your credit report says I checked both of mine at
least once a year that's kind of like a financial checkup and don't quote me on
this but I thought I read somewhere that you're supposed to be able to get at
least one credit report per year for free by law if I find out that's true
I'll look around and find out where you can do that and I'll leave a link to it
in the description box I don't know if you get credit scores for free I paid
for mine and I got mine from my FICO comm and I'll leave a link to that in
the description box too another short one for today guys I really appreciate
you watching if you enjoyed this video if you got something from it make sure
to share like comment and subscribe and I look forward to catching you in the
next video