Credit Karma recently released a free Credit Karma iPhone app that lets you monitor your credit anytime you want. It was released today I think and, as is the case with everything I’ve seen from them, it’s very well done.

The data on the screens isn’t mine so I can’t speak to what some of that means in a broader context.

The app is straightforward, with four basic screens (click to enlarge them in a new window):

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By now, you are probably aware of how important your credit score is to your financial future. Knowing your credit score, and keeping up with your credit situation can help you save money in the long run, especially as you take steps to improve your situation.

One of the ways you can keep tabs on your general creditworthiness is by signing up for a web site like Credit Sesame. Credit Sesame offers you access to a general idea of your credit score — at least the Experian version of it — and provides you with information about how you can save money with different credit offers. Recently, Credit Sesame launched an online app designed to let you take advantage of Credit Sesame on the go.

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Credit cards are the prevalent form of payment in our country. However, in spite of their convenience, there are some drawbacks to credit cards. While some contend that credit cards are pure evil, the truth is that they are tools. Whether or not they are tools that are likely to work for you depends on your financial goals and you situation.

Before you make a decision about whether or not to get a credit card, it helps to consider your own financial situation, and decide which card is mostly likely to help you meet your goals (if any card can do that). Here are some of the pros and cons of credit cards:

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You know the old maxim – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Does Credit Karma sound too good to be true? You can see your TransUnion credit score for free? You can get absolutely free credit monitoring? These are services that people pay good money for and Credit Karma, a company that isn’t affiliated with any of the credit bureaus, is giving it away for free. It does sound too good to be true.

That begs the question – is Credit Karma a Scam?

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One of the most common questions I get asked is whether I think someone has a good credit score (quickly followed by how they can improve their credit score). I know a little bit about credit scores and can usually give someone a good idea but whether a score is good will depend on a lot of factors.

First off, when people talk about credit scores, they’re usually talking about the Fair Isaac Corporation’s FICO credit score. There are others out there, one for each of the credit bureaus, the VantageScore, but ultimately the one people care about is still the FICO credit score. The others are given less glamorous names, like FAKO score.

With the score itself, a lot of it will depend on what you’re trying to do, how rates are in the marketplace, and whether your score gets you the rate you need to complete the transaction.

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Have you seen those advertisements on television where a guy is going to buy a television, only to get snubbed because one of this credit scores is vastly lower than the other two? Two of the “credit scores” look like Tom Brady while the third looks like Danny DeVito in a ski mask? The premise of the commercial is that you’ll want to use their credit score checking service because you might be at a store, ready to make a purchase, when you discover that one of your credit scores is bad and it derails the whole process.

But, how likely is that?

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I’ve been a fan of Credit Karma for as long as they’ve been around, met some of their people, and am generally very impressed with the service they offer. It’s been a cornerstone of my do-it-yourself identity theft protection system.

They recently emailed me to say they’ve developed a new feature that makes do it yourself identity theft protection even easier – they now actively report credit alerts.

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How much does it really hurt your credit score if you are late on your mortgage? What if you default and are foreclosed upon? Until recently, all we knew was that it was “bad.” Canceling a credit card was “bad.” Missing a payment was really “bad.” Defaulting was one of the worst “bads.” What we didn’t know was how bad it actually was because the FICO credit score equation has always been a black box.

Well it turns out that we might get a little peek into the black box.

Fair Isaac Corporation, creator of the FICO credit score, recently released some data on how your score is affected by certain “adverse actions” – being 30 days late on a mortage payment, a foreclosure, bankruptcy, short sale, etc. They also estimated how long it would take to fully recover from the action. I personally think it’s a little odd because, well, FICO created the score and the equation that calculates it.

Either way, the data is still compelling:
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