The Top 3 Most Important Factors On Your Credit Score

Looking at your credit score can sometimes lead to scratching your head and wonder what exactly it is that you’re looking at.  Instead of nice, little, separated sections of informative insight all you see are weird pie charts, words you’ve never even heard of, and now you’re thinking about pie. Yum… pie.  

Your credit score doesn’t have to be confusing, however.  It’s all a matter of knowing exactly which parts you want to focus on.  Once you have a clear picture of what exactly you’re looking at, you can get a greater understanding on exactly what it is you need to look out for.

Here are some of the most important factors on your credit score and why.

Delinquent Payments

Creditors want to know that you are good for your word and can pay back what you owe.  If someone looking at your credit score who is trying to determine whether you are worthy of being granted a loan sees a lot of late and missed payments, this is a bad sign.

Chances are this is going to have an extremely bad impact on your score and will set you back a lot of points.

This isn’t to say that it can’t be fixed, however.  There is life after mistakes, and certainly life after mistakes on your credit health.  

Make it a point to always pay on time for the rest of your life after allowing yourself a few hiccups in the beginning.  Perhaps you were very young or went through a rough financial patch.  By showing a consistent improvement you can be sure that your credit score will only get better and better.

Credit Utilization

If your credit utilization is almost maxed to the total amount of your total available credit, then this is a very bad sign to creditors that you aren’t able to pay off your debts.

Creditors want to be able to see that you are actively and consistently paying your debt off and aren’t about to go into the red.  

Keep your credit card utilization at about 30% if you can, and pay off your full balance whenever possible.  This is one of the single most important and beneficial things that you can do for your credit health.  By keeping a low balance and low utilization amount you will see a great impact on your credit score.

Age of Credit History

Unfortunately, this isn’t something that you can speed up.  You just have to be patient and keep your accounts open for as long as you can.  Consider opening up a small first credit card at a young age so that you have time to grow your credit age over the years.