One of the most common resolutions people make involves improving their finances. That’s because the new year is the perfect time to come up with a plan to get personal finances in order. Fortunately, in a unique and timely public service interview, we have one of the top experts in the nation to help. For more information visit MyFICO.com/Free
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00:00 Each year, people make a New Year's resolution, of course, of keeping their finances in order.
00:06 Well, last week I talked with financial expert Janelle Ditto of FICO about why it's important to understand your FICO score.
00:14 Good morning, Janelle. How are you this morning?
00:19 Good morning, Brad. I'm great. How are you?
00:21 Well, I'm doing really good because I'm so glad I'm talking about, of course, our FICO score because I went shopping like I won the Powerball, probably like a lot of other people did during the holidays.
00:32 So let's talk about why the New Year is the perfect time to start looking at your FICO score.
00:38 Well, the New Year is a great time because you're spending time resetting anyway.
00:44 So you're resetting your physical goals, your wellness goals. How about your financial goals?
00:50 The first part of that is knowing your FICO score. So that's why I love to talk about this at the beginning of the year. Thanks for having me.
00:58 Yeah. All right. Let's talk about, of course, how important it is as you go forward in the New Year of knowing your FICO score so you stay on course.
01:07 Well, it's really important to know it. How can you improve your score or make your plans without knowing it?
01:15 So getting your FICO score from your bank, whether that's their online or their app. A lot of banks share FICO scores or getting it from for free from my FICO dot com slash free is how you can get to know your score.
01:30 Once you know it, then you can start an action plan.
01:33 I like that. OK. You know, everyone talks about, of course, having that 850 FICO score. Is that really important to have?
01:42 It's not important. I love to kind of bust that myth. The great rates and the credit you need is available well below an 850. So the higher the score, the better. But nobody needs a perfect score.
01:58 OK, that's perfect to know because I'm probably one of those people. But let's talk about taking steps to get that FICO score up, though.
02:07 Right. Once you know your score, you can make those steps. So improving your score is really pretty basic, although it's a little it's a little easy to say that, if you will.
02:20 Paying your bills, paying down your credit are the important things to do. So you want to make sure you pay your bills on time, but you also want to avoid maxing out your cards.
02:34 Now, that's important, but it's also realistic to think about your budget. So setting a budget and sticking with it are important, too. So so just don't don't overspend. Don't take your December habits into January.
02:48 I like that. Well, there you go right there, because that's one good strategy you're talking about is, of course, how to recover from the holiday spending. Right.
02:57 That's right. So so setting that that budget, paying down your higher interest rate cards or loans is a great way to to kind of make a big impact with with the dollars you have as well.
03:09 I feel some people stress out about, of course, the FICO score. But I like how you said, like, you don't need to have it perfect.
03:16 But you want to do right now, May for twenty twenty four is to build it up, which is so important for people to do.
03:20 So it's paying, of course, on time and paying off, of course, the cards that you're using up, which is great.
03:27 But I love that you could actually go somewhere to find your FICO score much easier. So where can people do that?
03:33 Yeah, they can go to my FICO dot com slash free or download the my FICO app.
03:40 So those are great ways to get access to your FICO score. A lot of banks share it with you as well.
03:46 And then there's lots of great credit education and content on those sites that will help you also understand it further.
03:54 And and really just take take control. It is a journey. People don't have to stress about it.
04:02 Yeah, I like that. Well, perfect. Hey, Janelle, thank you very much for joining us this morning.
04:06 Thank you for, of course, helping us get on the right track to making sure our credit scores are going to be great to shop again next holiday.
04:16 That's right. Thanks, Brad.
04:19 Thank you.
04:21 [END]