How to find my real credit score?

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You can sign up for free on experian and they will give you your fico 8 for free. I just recently bought a 4runner and the credit score they pulled for me matched the fico 8 found on experians website. Hope this helps. Many credit card companies like discover and chase offer free credit scores as well. The entire credit system is a bit confusing and I've been down the rabbit hole on this entire topic but I've found experians free score to be pretty spot on. I also just applied and got approved for a discover card and the score they had on file matched the fico 8 found on experians free score option

 

Credit Karma App says 804 Transunion and 788 Eqwifax

 

Just another tip is you can opt to pay a dollar to see your fico auto score on experians website. I think mine matched my fico 8 but fico auto 8 is what toyota uses fyi

 

Credit karma uses a scoring system called vantage which is different from fico and isn't widely used in dealers or even mortgage applications. It's typically used for renters and doesn't use the same criteria in determining scores as fico does

 

My credit karma scores are about 50 points higher than my actual fico scores fyi. Toyota financial pulled my score at 729 and that matched my fico 8 and fico auto 8. My credit karma score was like 790

 

Knowing your score is only a small piece of the game. Understanding how the scores work is the real game. To build you credit score, you need to use credit. You need open accounts and keep them open. Before we bought our house, we started paying off everything we could, closed up the accounts as they were paid and we didn’t need them. That cost us, our scores went down, because our available unused credit went way down and our used to available ratio was a lot closer.

 

Yeah, you never close them out. Extremely low utilization is the key to building credit. Pay them off monthly or keep the usage below 7-10% and your score will rise.

 

It's only temporary. I did the same thing but in the long run your credit score will be even higher. What you can do is ask all your current credit card companies for an increase in the limit and then open up another credit card. I had a bunch of credit cards with small limits and those are the ones I had closed.

 

I am thinking of, instead of putting a big down-payment on the 4Runner, I will finance it with $5000 down and then throw my other $20,000 at the car payments in one go. That way I will have no car payments due for three years and my loan account will also remain open and I get a better credit score.

 

I'm almost positive your monthly payment will still be due the following month. You'll just end up paying it off early

 

This is true. You won't have "no car payment due", anything you pay ahead, simply reduces the principle so you'll pay less interest in the long run, but that payment will still come due. Think of it as an "additional principle payment".

However, it WILL save you more money to pay ahead on the principle than to put that $20K in the bank at the near negligible interest rates we have currently.

I DO think it would actually simply be better to put all $25K down on the vehicle, though. That way those monthly payments will be much smaller... also you would likely qualify for a better rate. I put close to that amount down and got a full percentage point rate reduction on my loan because a) I put a lot down, and b) was financing a much smaller amount for less time.

 

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And, you will show a payment history, also a factor in your score.

 

My scores are great even though the only debt I have is my mortgage. I have a couple cards that get paid in full every month. I refuse to pay interest on anything other than my mortgage. I wrote a check for the full amount of my Runner.
As was previously stated, I keep my card usage at a low % as well.
My wife is an accountant, so that helps to keep me on track.

 

You know high credit score is great, but it has nothing to do with one's ability to afford things. My credit score is good and I can put down $25,000 too. But I CANNOT afford a Land Cruiser. The dealer may give it to me but I cannot afford it. I even cannot afford the 4Runner to be honest. Affording things depends on one's net worth and annual income.