I have long been a big fan of Credit Karma, a free website where you can check your TransUnion credit score every month. It’s the only truly free site I know where I can track my score, so I use it every month when I update my net worth.

I hate all the secrecy behind credit scoring. I hate it more than I hate mayonnaise. And I hate mayonnaise more than Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski. If you don’t know who that is or how much he hates mayonnaise, please take a moment and watch this clip from one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.

Your TransUnion score isn’t your FICO score, so it’s not an exact representation of what banks would use when determining your loan eligibility, but it gives you an idea of where you’re credit score is and what you can do to make it better. Credit Karma takes some of the guess work out of your credit score, and for that I will love them forever.

“Well why don’t you marry it?” says my inner child. Well, if I could marry a website I might propose to Credit Karma after seeing their new Approval Odds feature. The website will take your credit information and use it to determine how likely it is that you will be approved for specific credit cards.

Eliminate the Guesswork of Credit Card Applications

This is awesome because applying for credit can lower your credit score. Each time you apply for a credit card, the company you apply to does a hard credit pull to see if you qualify. And every time someone does a hard credit pull, your credit score can drop a few points. You are usually fine with one hard pull every six months or so, but any more often than that and you’ll drop lose some valuable pointage. (Yep, I’m making up random words just like stupid FICO randomly makes up secret rules about your creditworthyness)

Assuming Credit Karma’s approval odds are accurate (which they seem to be at a glance, though I haven’t actually done any testing), it can tell people which cards to apply for and help them get the credit they need without applying for multiple cards and losing points on their score.

This is a great example of a win-win-win situation. Consumers don’t want to be denied for credit, so they can use this service and only apply for the right cards. Credit Karma surely gets a referral fee when someone applies for a card from their site. And the banks get new customers. Everyone wins!

I want to clarify that Credit Karma isn’t paying me to write this. In fact, I don’t even have an affiliate link for them. I just freaking love this service and want to tell everyone about it. If you’re sick of guessing about your credit score or paying to get your score, I strongly suggest using Credit Karma.

A Completely Unrelated Note

On a personal note, the move into my new apartment will finally be complete as of this weekend, so I’ll be back next week with five awesome posts every day! Thanks for bearing with me through this crazy week of moving and shooting a music video. The video is about half done. Depending on the availability of my co-star, cameraman, and myself, I will have this video done sometime between next week and next month. And with the video will come a super-awesome promotional giveaway, so get excited!

Kevin McKee

Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.