Today’s topic we’re going to talk about is how to get into the 800 credit score club. Is an 800 Credit Score really worth it?

Back in 2015, the big thing was being apart of the 700 credit score club. The credit score of 700 was big!

Today it’s all about the 800 credit score club, right? If you tell somebody 700, they’re like, okay, you’re doing somewhat okay. You need help still.

But back then, four years ago, it was like this big thing.

There’s nothing sexier than having an 800 credit score. Let me tell you why.

So the first thing that I want to talk about is; are you currently dating someone? You got a girl in your life, are you just meeting her? Or maybe you guys are engaged. Maybe you’re actually married?

Part of the issue is that when you have a 500 credit score, it is not very sexy. So you get into this relationship, you guys were out buying brand new suits, and you got your new shoes on, and you got your clothes, and your jewelry, right?

But then when it’s time to, she looks over at you and she says “I want to get out of this apartment.”

Maybe you’re tired of driving something that’s 15 years old and you want a new car. It’s time to get a new whip.

It’s time to get your brand new home that you guys have been planning on. And then you cringe. Because unless you have two hundred thousand dollars sitting around for a new home or $70,000 sitting around in cash, then you probably aren’t going to be able to get those two things, a home or a car with a 540 credit score.

So it’s great that we show off and we wear nice clothes, and we feel good with our jewelry on. But there’s nothing sexier and having an 800 credit score.

And what does that 800 credit score mean? What it means is dedication. What it means is that you have shown up every day and have taken pride in making payments on time, making sure your utilization was good, making sure that you provide for your family.

When it is time to make a move, you’re not sitting at a 540 going, holy shit. Now she’s going to be riding me about this damn house, and I got a 540, now I’ve got to make a move.

You guys need to tighten up and tighten up now. So that way when you guys are presented with something, like getting a new car, or getting a new home, that you can do it.

An 800 credit score, you walk into any bank you want and you say, this is what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a mortgage. I got a house that we’re looking at, me and the wife here, me and the girl are looking at a home, and I’m ready to buy, and it’s not even a question.

It’s not a question about you have late payments all over your credit report. It’s not a question whether your utilization is through the roof.

Because you’ve gotta Janky $300 Credit One card that you’ve maxed out and you’re wondering why your score is tanked, right?

So, you need to focus on today. Meaning get your credit right so when you have to make a decision when you guys are faced with some type of adversary, or maybe you’re faced with something like, hey, I’m ready to buy, you can do it.

Get started today. So, you don’t want to cringe. Okay?

So I’m going to give you three things you can do right away and here’s what I want you to do for me.

I want you to pull up, and I know guys, I always talk about Credit Karma being one of the credit monitoring services that I’m not favorable about.

You know that I like something like a three-bureau credit report, on My Fico, an Identity IQ, something that pulls all three and is a little bit more accurate. But if you’ve got Credit Karma, here’s what I need you to do.

I need you to write down collections. How many collections do we have? How many charge-offs? These are things I need you to write down.

After logging into your Credit Karma, write down how many accounts are in collection and how many accounts are charged-off, and how many accounts are late payments.

Once we get those written down, that’s step number one. We can’t fix what we don’t know, okay?

The second thing we want to do is you’ve got to write down the age.

So the age of your accounts is very, very important.

People with brand new credit typically are not going to have a great credit score, because there’s no history of being payments on time for a long period.

So write down your average age between all your accounts.

There are three sections. How many collections, charge off and late payments? Section number two is going to be how much age do we have (average age)? The third thing is your average utilization. That’s the three things that I need.

I need to write down those three. Once we have those, then we can put a plan into action as to getting them fixed.

An 800 credit score is not easy.

I personally do not have an 800 credit score. I am creeping and knocking on the door of it. But you’ve got to be consistent. I’ve been consistent for about eight years now.

To even get to an 850 I think the minimum was you gotta be 44 years old. Start when you’re 18 to 44 years old before you can even reach the achievement of an 850 credit score.

An 800 ain’t something to sneeze about. This is something that is very difficult to get to. I’m in the 790s. I always talk about being at 7%, no collections, no late payments. It’s just a matter of history at this point.

So the more time that I’m making payments, it’s going to creep over that 800. But there’s nothing at this point that I could really do better to get over that 800.

So it is sexy to have an 800 credit score. But the first thing is we need to check how many late payments we have.

This is a little tip for you guys who don’t have a whole lot of late payments, okay? People go through divorces and hardships where they lose their job, or maybe they went through a bankruptcy.

Things happen, right? Life happens to people.

So there is a thing called a goodwill letter, okay?

If you’ve made great payments on your credit cards, and you went through a hardship, and something happened where you missed a payment or two, you can get what they call a goodwill letter.

Meaning that you’re going to contact the company and say, look, I went through this situation.

They will forgive you for that late payment. A lot of the creditors will help you because you’ve maintained good scores, and you’ve maintained good payment history with them.

They’re not going to screw you over and say, you know what, you got a late payment, one out of 12, and we’re not taking it off.

They put it on, they can remove it.

But you’ve got to ask. If you don’t ask, it ain’t going to happen.

The other thing we want to look at is a minimum of seven years of history. Looking at your average age, if you’re less than seven years, you got to do a couple of things.

The first thing I’m going to tell you is to continue to make payments on time, every single month because that adds up every single month.

I know it’s kind of a lengthy process, but you just don’t go from a 540 to an 800 credit score overnight. It doesn’t happen.

But what you can do to speed up the process is you can throw a couple of tradelines on with age.

Continue to make your payments on time and as you throw a tradeline on with age, that age factors into the total amount of accounts you have.

Therefore it moves your overall age up.

We want to be above seven years. If you’re less than seven years, I told you, write down your age on the first part. If you’re less than seven, we want to start adding some tradelines to boost up your age.

The third thing is this. There’s no way you’re going to get to an 800 credit score with your utilization being over 7%.

Unfortunately, you guys that are at 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% utilization, that is 30% of your credit score.

30%. Think about this for a minute. A 600, what is 30% of 600? It’s 180 points.

You max out your credit card, your score is going down 180 points. So if you max out your credit cards, 180 points are taken off your score, because you’ve leveraged it at 100%. What I want you to think about is, as you are paying down these accounts, and what I recommend is paying down the accounts with the highest utilization.

There’s a little bit of controversy in this, where people are saying hey, pay off the ones with the highest interest. I disagree.

As you pay off the cards with the highest, focus on one.

Focus on one card that has the highest utilization right now.

If you got a $5,000 credit limit and it’s at 4,000 but then you have a $300 credit limit that just a store card, and it’s got high interest, do not worry about that one.

I want you to focus on the one with the highest utilization.

Pick that card, and start chunking away and paying that one down. Then as you do that, it’s going to be easier and easier to start paying down the little cards.

So, the highest utilization gets paid off first. In order to have an 800 credit score, you guys cannot be anything near the 30%, anything near the 20%, or even at 10%.

I always use the 7% rule. I think that’s very accurate.

If you’ve got a lot of credit cards and you’re under 7% you’re going to be on point. So, if you guys need help with any of this, feel free to post comments below on this.

I want you to start writing down those three things. How many collections late pay charge offs, number one. How many accounts with the average age? Okay, and then your utilization. I need to know exactly what that is.

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