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The 5 Components of Your Credit Rating

Written on July 7, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Money

credit_cards Bigg success is life on your own terms. Our focus today is on money, one of the five elements of bigg success.

Specifically, we want to talk about an asset that is particularly valuable now. Yet it doesn’t show up on your Balance Sheet. It’s your credit score.

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Target credit

This was highlighted in a recent post over at Mashable about Google ads targeting people with high credit scores. People with good credit are positioned to take advantage of these times. Not just with consumer goods, but also with investment opportunities. There are some great deals out there on real estate and businesses.

In addition, people with good credit will get better rates on the money they borrow. So if you have a good credit score, protect it like any other asset.

FICO

FICO was developed by the Fair Isaac Corporation. They have a great piece that explains how your FICO score is determined [PDF]. We’ll summarize it here, but we highly recommend you read their article if you want to know all the details.

Your FICO score can range from 300 to 850. Obviously, higher scores are better. Anything over 720 is considered SuperPrime according to the Mashable post. These are the people Google is targeting in their new ad program.

We’ll look at the five components of your FICO score (along with the weight given to each one for the general population).

Your payment history (35%)

Pay your bills on time. It’s probably no surprise that this is the single biggest factor in determining your score. If you’re not current, work hard to get current and stay there.

The amounts you owe (30%)

We found it interesting that, even if you pay your credit card balance in full every month, you may still show a balance on your credit report. It shows the balance posted on your most recent statement.

One myth they debunk is that you should close accounts so you don’t have too many credit cards. If you’re in good standing with no balance on an account, it doesn’t affect your FICO score.

However, you are better off having fewer cards with a balance. It’s also better to have a small amount outstanding compared to your available credit line.

Be careful not to have too much credit available. It can actually hurt your FICO score. So don’t get, or keep, credit cards you know you’ll never use.

Length of credit history (15%)

Here they look at the age of your accounts in general as well as how long it’s been since you used your account. One tidbit we found interesting:

If you just established credit for the first time, you’ll hurt your FICO score if you open too many accounts too quickly.

New credit (10%)

Here they look at what’s going on now. What credit have you applied for recently? How are you doing on those payments?

This is good news for people coming out of a period of late payments. Just remember, though, it gets a relatively small weighting.

The types of credit you use (10%)

You want a mix of both revolving credit lines and installment debt. For example, a credit card along with a car loan would include both types of credit.

Your credit rating is an important asset. It affects your credit capacity. Your credit capacity may help you fund your next bigg opportunity!

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Thanks for sharing some of your time with us today. Please join us next time when we talk about a higher level of problem-solving. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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(Image by Andres Rueda,CC 2.0)

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6 Paths to Financial Freedom

Written on July 2, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Financial Freedom

freedom Today is the fourth installment in our freedom series. We’ll focus on financial freedom.

Financial freedom … can you imagine it? To use the lingo from our last couple of posts, it means freedom from money worries or, even better, freedom to choose how we spend and live.

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Financial freedom is just one piece

We’ve defined bigg success as life on your own terms. There are five elements of bigg success – money, time, growth, work and play. Bigg success comes faster when these five elements work in synergy; that’s part of the bigg idea behind bigg success.

So while financial freedom is a worthy goal, be sure you’re looking at it as part of the bigg picture. What does life on your own terms mean to you? Only you know the answer that’s best for you.

Framing financial freedom

You are the entrepreneur of your own life. As the entrepreneur, you need to understand the two basic financial statements: your Income Statement and Balance Sheet.

The Income Statement shows how much money you brought in the front door and how much money went out the back door. Financial freedom means more income and less costs.

The Balance Sheet shows how much you own (your Assets) and how much you owe (your Liabilities). Financial freedom means more Assets and less Liabilities.

6 ways to define financial freedom

Debt free

There are variations of this. You may consider yourself free if you don’t carry a credit card balance forward from month to month. Other people want everything paid off except their house. For some, they want no debt period.

You focus on the Liabilities side of the Balance Sheet with this path. You want to minimize what you owe. Better yet, owe nothing.

Low standard of living

Some people take this to an extreme, but they’re the only ones who have to be happy with it. This is a very simple, yet proven path. Focus on spending less so you’re free to spend the excess money however you want.

Obviously, this path focuses on the Expense side of your Income Statement. “Low” is a relative term; it means low relative to your Income.

High salary

Conversely, you can focus on making a lot of money. Make a lot more than you spend and you’ll feel free financially.

We called it “salary” but it can be active income from any source – commissions, business ownership and the like. Obviously, we’re on the Income side of the Income Statement here.

Cash in the bank

If you have an amount equal to three to twelve months of living expenses in the bank, you may feel a sense of financial freedom. It doesn’t have to literally be “in the bank.” For example, you may have the money invested in a money market mutual fund.

This is a Balance Sheet strategy focusing on Assets, specifically Cash and Cash Equivalents.

Retirement nest egg

Here you get that sense of financial freedom by having enough money stored up to allow you to live comfortably, without working, for the rest of your life. Your focus is on building up the Asset side of your Balance Sheet. Unlike our third definition, this path is about building passive income from these Assets.

Wealth-creation

For some people, financial freedom means being wealthy enough to buy anything they want. There are a lot of degrees here. “Everything you want” doesn’t have to mean a jet or a yacht, but it can if that’s what you really want!

This is a complex path. You’ll probably need to manage both sides of the Income Statement and the Balance Sheet. You may not try to minimize Liabilities; instead, you’ll focus on having Liabilities that have paid for Assets that make you money.

It’s important to define financial freedom so you can determine your goals. With your goals in mind, you can develop strategies to achieve them. That leads to bigg success!