I pulled my official FICO credit score the other day while I was apartment hunting. Here it is:

751 out of a maximum of 850. Obama agrees, not bad. This is after a solid 2 years of serious and responsible credit card usage.

Let’s put this into perspective. I’m beating the national average of 690 and the NY state average of 702. I’m also in the _upper 40% _of the nation in creditworthiness. I’ve only been at this for a couple years! But I started relatively early and I did it right.

Source

The Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you. _Go check out your official credit score. _Nothing substitutes for your official FICO score. It’s the golden standard. See how your score stacks up against mine and the averages.

While you’re at it, sign up for Credit Karma. I got a cool notification from its free iPhone app the other day. It alerted me that there was a hard pull on my credit. I knew this was coming because I had just paid a fee for the landlord to run a credit check on me, but Credit Karma confirmed it. This app has earned a permanent spot on my phone next to my other financial apps. It tracks changes in my estimated score (the 753 score they give me is pretty darn close to the real thing) and it sends me important alerts almost instantly.

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Go to myFICO.com
2. Get your free credit score by signing up for their 10-day free trial (you will have to put in your credit card information)
3. Get your credit score and save that web page for your records
4. Go to their support page and go to the page that sends them an email (here’s the direct link)
5. Choose the “I would like to cancel my product subscription” option for the “Score Watch - Free Trial” and submit it
   You just retrieved your official FICO credit score and cancelled your subscription insuring you won’t be charged a dime.
6. Go to Credit Karma and sign up (this one’s totally free and there’s no credit card info needed)
   It’s totally free and secure. I like to check Credit Karma from time to time to track potential changes to my score in between my official score pulls.

Comment and Compare

Come back here, and post either score (your official FICO score, your Credit Karma score, or both)_. _You might be surprised at what kind of score you get. Take inventory of where you stand now so you can see how much you improve in a year or so.

Is your credit score better than mine?