What is your credit score? Basically, it’s a score that determines your credit worthiness. The higher your credit score, the more credit worthy you are deemed to be.

It is something that every consumer needs to know, whether they have a credit card or not. Your credit score, to a large extent, will determine your life style.

It determines, if you will get a loan or not. If you do get a loan, it has an impact on how much interest you will pay. Your credit score can determine if you are offered special credit card deals such as lowest credit card rates, bonus miles, and so on. And it determines whether you will be able to buy a home or if you will be forced to rent.

So, since this score is apparently so important, what exactly determines your credit score?

A number of factors go into determining one’s credit score. Probably, first among them is your payment history. A late payment on your bill will drive your credit score down. The later your payment is, the further down your credit score drops. More than one late payment will drive the score down even further. To be safe, if you don’t want your credit score to go down, make your payments on time.

A high debt balance also drives down your credit score. In other words, the closer you are to the credit limit on your cards, the lower your credit score will be.

The last major factor affecting your credit score is how long you’ve had credit for. A college student or a person who buys everything with cash will have a lower score than someone in their 60′s who has had credit since 19.

Read more from Susanna regarding credit card and bad credit and college credit cards at her website.