What is my credit score?

Posted by Erik on January 13th, 2009

The following post in our Reader Question series is an actual user submitted question. To maintain the integrity of the original question, we do not edit or change reader questions in any way.

Q: What is my credit score?

A: NextAdvisor.com doesn't know your credit score, but we can help you find it! (If you're looking for the definition of credit score, check out our "What is a credit score?" FAQ.) Our recommended way to get your credit score is to sign up for a credit monitoring service that offers them for free. When you sign up for a free 30-day trial of our top pick, Identity Guard Total Protection, you get your credit scores and reports for all 3 bureaus. We also recommend you stay subscribed to this service (it costs $14.95 monthly after the free trial), as they will give you updates of your scores and reports every quarter, as well as monitoring of your credit report at all 3 bureaus, comprehensive identity theft protection and free internet security software. However, if you decide you don't need all that, just cancel in the first 30 days and you'll have received your credit scores and reports for free, not to mention other things like a free public records report.

If you don't want to sign up for a free trial and just want to buy your credit scores, read our post answering the question "Can I get my credit score without signing up for any other services?"

• Do I need another credit report?
• Reader Question: How much do credit report monitoring services cost?
• What is my fico score?
• Do my spouse and I have one credit report?
• Can I get my credit score(s) without signing up for any other services?