Woo hoo! My credit score is up 5 points from last month. Yes, I know that’s still not very good, but it’s getting better. Back in May, before the Evil Credit Card showed up on my credit, my score was 697.
I’m not sure I’ll make it to 710 or not by the end of the year, but I’ll certainly keep trying. So why did it go up 5 points this last month? Here’s a couple factors that might have affected it:
- I made a huge payment on the Evil Credit Card. This dropped my credit utilization down, which is good. This means of all the credit I have available to use, I am now using a lower percentage of it. My personal goal for credit utilization is under 10%, I still have about 8 or 9 percent to go.
- Another month down means that my bankruptcy (almost 10 years old) is slowly getting ready to disappear. It’s still on there, but I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t screw you as much when it gets older and older. Not really sure though, this might have nothing to do with it at all—I think it’s all about #1 honestly.
- As another month goes by, the average age of my open accounts gets a tiny bit longer. I really don’t think this is why either. Sure, over time it makes a difference, but one month shouldn’t really have any effect unless you have only 1 account. Just my opinion. 😉
So, the winner (in my mind) is #1. Do I think my credit score is going to go up again next month? No sir, but it’d be pretty cool. I think maybe if I throw some crazy money at the Evil Credit Card over the next couple of months, it might go up a couple more points. We’ll see.
In case you don’t check it already, you can go over to Credit Sesame and get your credit score for free—no strings attached. I update mine monthly, but I think you can do it more often than that.
FYI: Don’t worry, this isn’t my FICO score, no way would I pay to check that every month—that would totally be a waste of money. I’ll wait until later on, before getting serious about buying a house or if I ever need to take out a loan (eek!).
How are you doing with your credit score?