Why You Need a Good Credit Score

CREDIT SCORES AREN’T NORMALLY THOUGHT OF AS SOMETHING TO MAKE YOUR HEART BEAT FASTER, BUT THE TRUTH IS THAT A GOOD CREDIT SCORE IS THE SAME AS GETTING AS MUCH AS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR FREE.

When you apply for a major loan such as for a car or a home, potential lenders will look at your credit score to see whether it is risky to lend to you or not. And if you have good credit (a score above 760), lenders will view you as a low-risk loan recipient who is likely to repay the loan. And since they don’t fear that you’ll default, they’ll be willing to charge you a lot less in interest than someone with a poor score. In fact, for the very lowest scores, lenders won’t even give a penny.

To see this money savings in action, click here. Move the slider to the left and right to see how much your mortgage, car loan or credit card interest would be, depending on your credit score.

If you want to get a free credit score, check out Credit Karma, and for a free annual credit report, go to Annualcreditreport.com.

In order to maintain a good credit score, it’s important to make sure that you find erroneous charges early. For that reason, it’s a good idea to in the My Money Center, so you can see all your transactions at a glance and monitor them regularly.