What a difference a decade makes – Our credit scores have hit an all-time high
Bottom Line: If there’s one message I’d want convey to someone who doesn’t fully understand how important your credit score is – it's that important. Over the years, as recently as about two years ago, I’ve shared the cost of not having good credit. Two years ago, for the average American I calculated the cost of poor credit to equal $568,000 over the course of one’s lifetime. Let alone the lack of access that can come with poor credit. For the average person who lives with poor credit, they’ll work for an average of 11 additional years to simply service the higher cost of life compared to those with good credit. Crazy right?
On a happier note, another consistent message of mine is how quickly you can improve your credit score if you’ve suffered negative financial adversity. Just a month ago I shared this fun fact More than two-thirds of Americans have seen their credit score improve over a year ago. For those who’ve experienced a gain the average improvement has been about 18 points. But that’s an average, there are some incredible recovery stories. For example, 14% of Americans have seen a boost of 40 points or more to their credit scores over last year!
And that’s the point. You can bounce back quickly, and you have 568,000 reasons to do so. Now here’s the update. We’ve been doing just that...
According to FICO, our national credit score has hit 704, a new all-time high. That means that the average American is generally getting the 2nd best terms available. Currently scores at 700 or above getting “good” credit terms with scores at 760 or above considered excellent – receiving the best possible terms. So that 760 should be the ultimate goal. We’ve had a lot of record setting numbers in our current economy but this one is among the most personally significant because it impacts virtually all aspects of our life from loans to utilities to insurance products.