What Is In My Credit Score?

It is common knowledge that your credit score is important, but many people are unclear on exactly how their score is calculated. Your credit report is made up of many different pieces of credit data. All of these pieces can be group into five main categories—but these five slices of the credit score pie are not all equal. Some components influence your score more than others. Here is a pie chart to break it down:

Your Credit Score consists of:

As you can see, the largest contribution to your credit score is your payment history. The first thing any lender wants to look at is your past credit cards and loan accounts to see if payments were made on time.

The second largest factor is the amount of money you owe. Using credit cards can help you build credit, however, it is important to keep balances low. Having a couple of credit cards that all…