When I talk to friends about credit cards, they eventually always ask me how many credit cards I currently have. I am not embarrassed, so I tell them I currently have 24 open credit cards (full list here). The usual response is “doesn’t that kill your credit score?”
My favorite response is: “my credit score is good enough to get 24 credit cards, so it must be pretty good.”
But lately, I’ve been thinking about their question and I wanted to see if I can get a more accurate number for what my credit score actually is. I use free online credit monitoring services Credit Karma and Credit Sesame (learn more here).
Let’s start with Credit Karma. According to their website, my “credit score” is 756 based on TransUnion Credit Score data. The reason I use “credit score” in quotes is because it is a FAKO score, not a FICO score. What that means is that Credit Karma (and Credit Sesame) get the raw credit data from one of the 3 big credit bureaus and analyses it to create their own “credit score.” Most of the time their “credit score” is very similar to the real credit score, but sometimes their are differences. One important point is to check that date that your “credit score” was produced, which in this case is March 28.
