The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

What your credit score actually means

The modern iteration of credit scores hasn’t been around for that long—it was invented just a few decades ago, in 1989. This video outlines how the credit scoring system has evolved and become more complex since then. Plus, it explains what your credit score actually means, what factors impact your score, and more. Watch it here.

How to check your credit score

Contrary to popular belief, checking your credit score doesn’t hurt your credit. Many credit card companies show your score when you log into their app online, but there are other ways to check it.

Five primary factors determine your credit score

Your credit history is used to calculate your credit score. It includes information such as how often you miss payments (on credit cards, for instance), the types of financial accounts you hold, how long you’ve held those accounts, and more.

What are business credit scores?

Businesses have credit scores the same way individuals do—with a few key differences. For one thing, business credit scores range from 0 to 100 instead of 300 to 850, and are based on factors such as bankruptcy and bill-paying habits.

Consequences of a bad credit score

A bad credit score can lead to spending roughly $100K more on a typical mortgage. Poor scores also prevent you from getting certain jobs, apartments, and more, hindering you from building wealth in the long term.

See how a good VantageScore and a good FICO score can differ

While VantageScores and FICO scores both offer credit scores between 300 and 850 and consider the same core factors, they weigh those factors differently, and specific numbers can have different meanings depending on the type of score.

Master the banking basics

Before deciding on a credit union, it’s important that you understand the basics. That way you can know exactly what’s happening with your hard-earned money behind the scenes. Flip through these flashcards to make sure you understand key terms like “deposit” and “checking account.” Then, you can read up on top banking products and start to find a credit union that works for you. Click here, then scroll down the page to find the cards.

Credit scores seriously suffer when individuals file for bankruptcy, and there’s no easy fix

Those who file for Chapter 7 must wait 10 years before the bankruptcy is removed from their credit report. For Chapter 13, the wait time is seven years.

How credit scoring works outside the US

If you move outside the US, you won’t get to take your credit score with you. Credit scoring systems work differently in other countries. In the UK, for instance, being registered to vote improves your credit score.

Do student loans affect your credit score?

While student loans can impact your credit score, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Repaying the loan on time can strengthen your credit score, whereas paying late can hurt it. To find out more about how student loans can impact your credit score, read this article.

Credit reporting's earliest origins in the 1700s resemble a game of telephone, with rural merchants asking their most esteemed neighbors to vouch for them to sleuthing urban lenders

It would be decades before the system evolved into something more formulaic. For instance, New York City's Mercantile Agency—which was created to formalize information and rumors about borrowers, sorting the reports into enormous ledgers—wasn't started until 1841.

How to get a copy of your credit report

By law, it's possible to get a free credit report once each year from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, the three major credit bureaus. The US government recommends using AnnualCreditReport.com to request these reports, as it's the only website authorized by the federal government to provide the legally mandated free reports.

Privacy concerns in the credit scoring system

Because credit scores use a lot of personal information (such as whether or not someone makes credit card payments on time), some worry their privacy is being compromised in the data collection process.

Credit limits can be lowered as well as increased

Some common reasons for someone's credit limit being lowered include missed payments, an inactive account, and more.

How to get out of debt

This article provides a few helpful tips for getting out of debt, such as learning more about the debt itself and asking for better interest rates. It also explains the popular "debt snowball" and "debt avalanche" methods for getting out of debt. Curious to learn more? Read the full article here.

Rewards credit cards can offer points, travel miles, and more

For every dollar that a cardholder spends on a rewards credit card, they can also receive benefits such as cash back, airline miles, and more. For many, rewards are the reason they make so many purchases on credit cards in the first place.

Kal Penn explains credit scores

Kal Penn, the actor who played Kumar in the “Harold and Kumar” films and appeared in shows like “How I Met Your Mother” and “House,” just so happens to know a thing or two about how the credit scoring system works in the US.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

Private credit grew from a $250B asset class in 2010 to around $1.5T in early 2024

That's partly due to the industry's rising interest rates that created more upside for investors. Interest rates have increased in recent years alongside the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes beginning in 2022. Private credit loans typically stretch over multiple years (typically between five and seven years, although term lengths vary).

Old credit cards can be made into guitar picks, phone stands and more

Experts recommend always cutting through the chip and the card number when disposing of expired credit cards, as the magnetic strip, the chip, and the card number all contain information that thieves might be interested in.

Take a quiz to discover your brain care score

Each year, nearly 800,000 Americans have a stroke. With such a high occurrence rate, you may be asking yourself what you could do now to prevent a future stroke. Researchers at Harvard collaborated to answer this question by coming up with a "Brain Care" scoring system. Take the quiz to learn the quality of your brain health today and pick up helpful insights to lower your risk of stroke and dementia well into the future.

Explore a college affordability and transparency guide

From the US Department of Education, this portal provides everything you need to evaluate colleges. The college scorecard provides handy data on every school, from graduation rates to annual average earnings out of school, while the net cost calculator directs you to each school's calculator that allows you to estimate the cost of college based on your unique circumstances.

Experts recommend keeping one to two months' worth of expenses in checking

That amount allows you to pay your bills and avoid overdraft fees while ensuring you don't lose interest. Most checking accounts have a near-zero interest rate (0.07% APY on average) while high-yield savings could earn up to 4% as of 2026. Cash sitting in your checking account can mean a loss of hundreds of dollars.

How to calculate your net worth

Someone's net worth is the value of their assets minus their liabilities. Assets may include a home or a retirement savings account, whereas examples of liabilities include student or credit card debt.

A third of Americans don't have the cash they need to cover a $500 emergency

That's according to a 2023 Federal Reserve survey. So what does the average American in this camp do when, say, their car breaks down? This video compares six of the most common ways Americans get money when they don't have it. As it turns out, some of them opt for payday loans, which this video argues are predatory.

Getting prequalified or preapproved for a loan is typically step one in securing a home loan

While prequalification and preapprovals give buyers an idea of the type of loan offer they might expect, the prequalification process is much more straightforward than getting preapproved. However, some real estate agents require buyers to get preapproved, and some sellers may take a buyer's offer more seriously.

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

Use this calculator to find the dollar value of your mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care for your children.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Doctors differentiate between a phobia and fear by asking patients whether their fear interferes with their day-to-day activities.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

See how Ebola tore through Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in 2014-2016.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.