Answered By Mike Killian: Determining how a credit score ranks depends a lot on the economy: what constitutes bad credit, good credit or excellent credit in today's economy is subject to change over time. However, defining bad credit is a little easier: Credit reports with a significant history of late payments are generally considered bad, because over 33 percent of your credit score is determined by on-time payment history.

The days are gone that you could get credit by simply being a warm body. Will these times return? Probably not, but they definitely will not return while our economy is in such bad condition. Today's lenders are very selective as to who gets credit. As an example, an excellent credit score used to be 720 or better. That score is now 760 or better, because money is tight. Good credit would then follow at around 700 to 760.

Another method of trying to determine how your score stacks up is to check out the division of scores among consumers. About 20 percent of consumers fall in the range of 780 to 850. The next 20 percent is about 740 to 780 followed by another 20 percent at 690 to 740. Then there is the next 20 percent at 620 to 690, with the lowest 20 percent below 620.

"No credit" is usually considered bad credit, too. Consumers new to the credit world usually have no credit and find themselves in the same situation as a person with bad credit. The simplest and fastest solution for either case is a secured credit card available at most major banks within your community. There is usually a requirement to have a savings account of $250 or more to get a secured credit card.