I have to admit, I've never paid one bit of attention to my FICO score and have never once even bothered to see what it is. I know WHAT FICO is, but I've always paid my bills and never checked my score. I know there is a lot more that goes into the score, but I've simply never given it any thought. I've always handled Lynn's finances as well as mine and I pay all the bills ... by that, I mean "physically" pay them ... we have a joint bank account.

I guess what I'm wondering is what makes the difference here? ALL of my bills get paid on time. ALL of Lynn's bills get paid on time. ALL of the debts are in MY name except her car payment/insurance. Mortgage, utilities, ALL credit cards ... everything is in my name. With me on Social Security, our income is pretty much the same (which isn't much!). With all of my debt and low income ... and her minimal debt with matching income, it seems to me, I'd be the bigger credit risk.

What got me wondering is when we traded her car a couple months ago, my salesman told us her FICO score was 818, so there'd be no problem with a decent loan.

This morning I got an eMail from American Express reminding me I could check my FICO score with them at any time, free of charge (and the "check" does not go against the credit report). So, for shits & grins, I decided to check it out. Here's the return:

Your FICOŽ Score as of September 23rd - 850

Ok, what does 850 mean? I looked it up.

"FICO scores range from 300 to 850, where 850 is considered to be the best score achievable. According to myFICO.com, a division of the Fair Issac Corporation, only 13% of the U.S. population has a FICO score greater then 800, while only 2% has a FICO score lower then 500. The largest proportion of the population, 27%, has a FICO score between 750 and 800.

My question is, why would my score be higher than hers? All things seem equal, EXCEPT I have higher debt. Wouldn't that mean she's a lower credit risk compared to me? How does this FICO thing work? I guess it sounds silly that I've never paid one bit of attention to it in all of my 63 years! I just always knew I'd never done anything to f-up my credit, so I never worried about it.