Here’s another question from a reader:
I’m afraid to check my credit score because it will lower my score, so how do I find out about my credit?
That’s one of the common myths out about credit, that checking or pulling your own credit report will hurt your credit score. And it doesn’t. It doesn’t affect it at all. You can check your credit every day if you were so obsessive and inclined.
There are two great sources for checking credit. First, you can get a free credit report once a year from each of the three credit agencies by visiting this link Free Credit Report.
Second, if you’ve already gotten your free report, you can get a really great tri-merged report, that pulls all of the credit reports on one report, by visiting this link Tri-Merged Credit Report.
I was talking to someone today who has an 820 credit score and he’s afraid to apply for any loans because he doesn’t want to lower his credit score. Which brings me to this question…
Won’t applying for new credit lower my score?
If you have a high credit score and are afraid to apply for credit, what good is that?
Credit’s out there to be used and to be used to make you money. And that’s what I’m so passionate about. There are hundreds of other people that talk about credit and credit score. Very few people talk about how to use it to get wealthy, and that’s really the purpose of credit.
Having good credit without the borrowing power behind it is merely a bragging right. It’s like having a high SAT score with no intention of getting into college.
When you apply for credit it does create a small “ding” or dip in your credit score. However, when you get approved for the credit that has excess capacity, like a credit card or line of credit, I promise, it will actually increase your score.
I ran into someone in a hotel lobby. She came up to me and said
I’m not one of your customers, but I did hear you on a teleseminar. I took one action that you said to do and my credit score increased by 7 points.
Me: “what did you do?”
Applied for a new credit card.
Like I’ve said many times…everything you know about credit may be wrong…
