We could all stand to have a better credit score, but the holidays are obviously NOT so good for your credit cards.  So check out some of the facts from a recent FICO report on people with extremely high credit scores . . . they might surprise you.

#1.)  People with great credit are not debt-free.  On average, the highest FICO score-holders carry SEVEN credit cards.

#2.)  But they don't carry many balances.  Typically, between credit accounts and loans, they'll have about four debt payments a month.

#3.)  Two-thirds of them have less than $8,500 in total debt.  That excludes mortgages, but includes car loans.  Most of them use less than 7% of their available credit.

#4.)  They ALWAYS pay on time.  Payment history accounts for 35% of your FICO score.  And 96% of the highest scorers have NO missed payments on their credit report.  The rest have none in the past four years.

#5.)  Some of them have messed up before.  One out of 100 has had debts go to collections.  And a few . . . about one in 9,000 . . . have even had bankruptcies.

#6.)  They keep the same accounts and rarely open new ones.  The AVERAGE age of a high scorer's oldest account is 25 YEARS.  The average age of all accounts is 11 years.

--So if you need a new car loan and your credit stinks, you can fix it.  The bad news is, that new car might be a clunker by the time you do.

(FICO)