How to Track Your Credit Score in a Spreadsheet for Free

You already know that your FICO credit score is an essential personal finance metric to track.

And you probably already know that spreadsheets are one of the best tools for tracking these metrics.

That’s because spreadsheets are easy to modify, offer dozens of charts and visualizations, and are accessible anywhere you get online.

Plus, you own your data in spreadsheet, and can export it anytime.

Credit Score in a Spreadsheet?

I’ve always wanted a safe, secure way to automatically update my FICO score in a spreadsheet, just as Tiller updates daily spending, bank balances, and other personal finance transactions.

However, I haven’t yet found such an automated tool. (Though it’s something our team could build later this year.)

So for now, I manually update my FICO credit score. I do this once a month, when I login to pay my Discover card balance.

That’s because Discover offers a free FICO tracking tool for anyone who uses a Discover account. When I pay my bill, I see my FICO score and manually copy it into a new cell in my FICO score Google Sheet.

But Discover also offers a Free Credit Scorecard for anyone to track their FICO score – no Discover account required.

As Discover says, “Discover provides a FICO® Score to anyone, for free.”

Why Track Your FICO Score?

There are several “brands” of credit score. For example, Capital One card offers a free credit score tracking tool for account holders with data from Transunion.

But I prefer to most closely track my FICO score:

• It’s the most widely used credit score in America.
• 90% of “top lenders” use one of FICO’s scores in their lending decisions.
• It’s a simple, consistent (side note –  below) number that’s easy to track over time.

Get Your Free Fico Score (Without Spam)

For $19/ month and up, you can subscribe to Myfico.com to get your FICO score, along with various credit alerts.

But the free FICO scorecard from Discover is probably a better solution for most people.

(Note that Tiller isn’t a Discover affiliate, and don’t make money on this recommendation.)

While many services offer “free” credit scores, they often deploy shady upgrade tactics and tons of email spam.

But as of this post, Discover keeps it simple and spam-free:

• You login and see your monthly FICO score. This doesn’t harm your credit.
• The free Discover Scorecard includes alerts about activity that could impact your FICO score along with new credit inquiry alerts.
• The Scorecard shows what’s helping your FICO® Score, and what’s hurting it.

Example Spreadsheet Templates to Get Started

My FICO Score spreadsheet is very simple and boring. I like it that way. It’s just a long row of months, with my score under the month.

I use a simple chart to visualize changes. But my score hasn’t changed much in months, so the chart is also boring.

Link to Google Sheet

I found a much more comprehensive credit tracking and maximizing spreadsheet with several intriguing tools on the MyFICO.com forums.

It hasn’t been updated for a couple of years, so some of the links and data are out of date.

Still, it’s a nifty tool for tracking balances, visualizing credit utilization, and simulating your FICO score.

Get a copy of the Shared Credit Score Spreadsheet here. (Opens as Google Sheet template preview.)

If you make any customizations to this spreadsheet, consider sharing it with the Tiller community. Email edward@tillerhq.com.