Credit Score Advice from Bradford Stroh

Bills.com Co-Founder, Bradford Stroh, reviews credit score basics and offers advice for maintaining a good score in this credit score video.

Watch this credit score video, from Bills.com CEO Bradford Stroh, to help you learn how credit score and credit history impact you financially.

Video Transcription;

"Hi, my name is Brad Stroh from Bills.com and I wanted to chat with you today about credit scoring and specifically what it means to you. First of all, a credit score is typically a three digit number, ranges from about 350 up to 850, that defines how you have looked historically to lenders.

The primary components of your credit score are;

Your payment history, which means have you paid your bills on time.

How much debt you have outstanding right now, your debt utilization, which means are any of your cards maxed out or any of your trade lines are over limits.

And a lot of secondary variables including things like how long you have been in your home, how long have you had your trade lines open, and some additional variables like recent inquiries.

What you can do to control your credit score and improve it is, pay down any cards that are over the limit or close to maxed out. It’s also imperative that you pay your bills on time if you want to have a good credit score. Now, credit score alone is just an indicator of your ability get credit, it is not a loan or guarantee of future credit. So the other things you are going to want to maintain in addition to a good credit score are;

Pretty good debt to income ratio which means don’t overextended yourselves with credit cards and auto loans and home loans, and also if you are looking to buy a home or get a mortgage is make sure you shop around and save up enough for a good down payment, reasonable rule of thumb is at least ten percent of the home value to put down in order to qualify for the best possible loan. But, pull your credit report once a year you can do that in Bills.com or you can go for free to annualcreditreport.com and pull your credit report. Make sure you are paying your bills on time, make sure everything that’s on your credit report is accurate, and stay on top of your credit so that in the future you will have access to future loans and credit products."