MyFico Score Stimulator

[simplegirl]

Are the fico score stimulators accurate on how many points you would get in a certain amount of time? 

[kuku4koco]

The simulator and simulated score are provided for informational purposes only and are intended to approximate the impact of various scenarios on your FICO Score 8 - assuming all other factors stay the same.

[Anonymous]

I wish I had a FICO score stimulator.  I could really use one.  :-)

Seriously, the simulator can sometimes be misleading.  Better is to learn how the basic factors work yourself.  If you have particular questions about what changes to your profile will help you best, you can often find people here on the forum who can guide you more reliably.

Here's just one example of how the simulator can mislead people new to learning about credit.  The simulator will often suggest that you gradually pay down your CC debt over a 24 month period.  There is in fact no scoring advantage to this "gradual" approach, and many serious drawbacks, notably:

     (a) Your score will be lower for a longer period of time

     (b) You will be creating a history for yourself as a person who carries CC debt (also bad)

     (c) You will be paying a lot of interest

Far better is to payoff the CC debt entirely as quickly as possible, and then continue to use one card for small purchases.  But the simulator will likely not help you see how much better that is.

[simplegirl]

CreditGuyInDixie wrote:

I wish I had a FICO score stimulator.  I could really use one.  :-)

Seriously, the simulator can sometimes be misleading.  Better is to learn how the basic factors work yourself.  If you have particular questions about what changes to your profile will help you best, you can often find people here on the forum who can guide you more reliably.

Here's just one example of how the simulator can mislead people new to learning about credit.  The simulator will often suggest that you gradually pay down your CC debt over a 24 month period.  There is in fact no scoring advantage to this "gradual" approach, and many serious drawbacks, notably:

     (a) Your score will be lower for a longer period of time

     (b) You will be creating a history for yourself as a person who carries CC debt (also bad)

     (c) You will be paying a lot of interest

Far better is to payoff the CC debt entirely as quickly as possible, and then continue to use one card for small purchases.  But the simulator will likely not help you see how much better that is.

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I wanted to pay down my credit card debt from 2133 to a dollar on each card because everytime I pay in full my scores drop and My balance on my hsn card went up and I gained points but my capital one card balance went down a dollar and I gained points again. I want to get my scores to 660s minium by summer or winter of this year because I want to buy a car. My scores are at EQUIFAX 602 TRANSUNION 631 EXPERIAN 613 and with the stimulator it says that I will which is why I asked how accurate it is.

[Anonymous]

What you want to do is pick one card that you like.  Always have that report a small positive balance.  $1 is too small.  $5 is fine.  Always pay that card is full -- which means to allow the card to report the positive balance on the statement, and then a few days after the statement prints, pay the amount owed (that appears on the statement) in full.

All other cards should report $0.  You will not get a scoring advantage from having many or all your cards reporting a positive balance.  If it seems like that might have been true, it was just noise.  This has been incredibly well tested over time.  Most cards at $0, with one showing a small positive balance.  Boom -- that's optimal.

Once you have go your CC balances reporting the way I describe, you should strongly consider the SS loan technique:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Adding-an-installment-loan-the-Share-Secu...

It's a very valuable way to prepare for your first car loan, though it only works if you have no open installment loans of any kind (no personal loans, student loans, etc.).

[simplegirl]

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@Anonymous wrote:

What you want to do is pick one card that you like.  Always have that report a small positive balance.  $1 is too small.  $5 is fine.  Always pay that card is full -- which means to allow the card to report the positive balance on the statement, and then a few days after the statement prints, pay the amount owed (that appears on the statement) in full.

All other cards should report $0.  You will not get a scoring advantage from having many or all your cards reporting a positive balance.  If it seems like that might have been true, it was just noise.  This has been incredibly well tested over time.  Most cards at $0, with one showing a small positive balance.  Boom -- that's optimal.

Once you have go your CC balances reporting the way I describe, you should strongly consider the SS loan technique:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Adding-an-installment-loan-the-Share-Secure-technique/m-p/4506756

It's a very valuable way to prepare for your first car loan, though it only works if you have no open installment loans of any kind (no personal loans, student loans, etc.).

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Actually I already had a auto loan that was a total lost after the flood. It was paid off in July so this would be my second car loan first one without a co signer. I also have 4 student loans totaling $6900. 

[Anonymous]

The SS loan Tecnique will probably not help you, since you have open installment loans already (namely student loans).

But because your open installment loans are ALL student loans, there is a chance that the SSL technique could still benefit you, but that is speculative at this point and unless you really felt keen to just take a swing for the sake of science I could not advise it.

Getting your cards to all zero except one (AZEO) with the remaining card having a balance of maybe $20 -- this is your best plan.  Do this for at least two months straight, three is better.  Don't try to infer the implications of it immediately: let your score stabilize with the new balances.

Above all do not pay off any of your student loans -- keep them open.  If you have a lot of extra cash you could pursure paying them down, however, which might help your score.  Considering all the open student loans together, how much were they originally for?

[simplegirl]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The SS loan Tecnique will probably not help you, since you have open installment loans already (namely student loans).

But because your open installment loans are ALL student loans, there is a chance that the SSL technique could still benefit you, but that is speculative at this point and unless you really felt keen to just take a swing for the sake of science I could not advise it.

Getting your cards to all zero except one (AZEO) with the remaining card having a balance of maybe $20 -- this is your best plan.  Do this for at least two months straight, three is better.  Don't try to infer the implications of it immediately: let your score stabilize with the new balances.

Above all do not pay off any of your student loans -- keep them open.  If you have a lot of extra cash you could pursure paying them down, however, which might help your score.  Considering all the open student loans together, how much were they originally for?

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I will try that technique through NFCU if they have it if not either DCU or Penfed and that is the original amount of the student loans. 2 started reporting in 2014 and the other two just appeared in 2016.

[Anonymous]

If you really want to explore that technique, I think you should go into it with the expectation that, more likely than not, it will give you zero scoring benefit -- because of your already existing open loans.

In short, you'd be doing the technqiue because you want to help us out here on the forum by testing something -- not because it will help your score.  (Though of course there is a chance that it might help you -- that's the thing we want to test.)

If a kind of theoretical testing is the main reason we are doing it, then it's important that it be done right, or otherwise the test data won't mean anything.  So if you decide you want to pursue it, please send me a private message and I'll help you get your profile in shape for a clean test.  My preference will be to use Alliant since other CUs may not permit paydown in the right way, or they might do a hard pull, etc.

[SouthJamaica]

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@simplegirl wrote:

Are the fico score stimulators accurate on how many points you would get in a certain amount of time? 

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They're not "accurate" in the sense that you can rely on them, like a dependable wristwatch.

Sometimes they do a good job of predicting the outcome, and sometimes they don't.

I rely on them only for entertainment value.