There are many myths about what affects your credit score, and it’s easy to get caught up worrying about the wrong things. Here are some common misconceptions and the reality of what does and does not impact your credit score.

1. Salary: Surprisingly, your income doesn’t directly influence your credit score. Whether you make $50,000 or $500,000 a year, it won’t give you an edge in your credit score calculation. However, your salary does matter when lenders assess your debt-to-income ratio, which can affect your creditworthiness.

2. Demographic factors: Your race, religion, physical appearance, or sexual orientation have no bearing on your credit score. It would be both unethical and illegal for credit scoring to consider these factors.

3. Medical history: Just like health insurers can’t discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, your medical history does not impact your credit score. This includes any large medical debts you might have.

4. Traffic and parking fines: As long as you pay them on time, fines for parking or driving infractions do not hurt your credit score. However, unpaid fines can eventually be sent to collections, which could impact your score.

5. Savings account balances: The size of your savings doesn’t affect your credit score. Credit scoring focuses more on how you manage debt rather than how much money you’ve saved.

6. Child support dealings: Working with child support agencies won’t affect your score. However, failing to pay child support can lead to serious credit issues if it results in legal actions.

7. Relatives’ financial habits: Your credit score is yours alone; it isn’t influenced by your family members’ financial behaviors unless you jointly hold accounts or loans with them.

8. Student loans: Taking out student loans won’t directly hurt your score. What matters is how you manage these loans, especially your consistency in making payments.

9. Credit application rejections: Being denied credit doesn’t directly lower your credit score. However, the credit inquiries resulting from applying can have a small impact.

10. Bank fees and penalties: Ordinary fees like overdraft charges or account minimum penalties don’t affect your credit score unless they lead to more severe banking issues.

11. Investment activity: How often you buy or sell stocks or other investments doesn’t impact your credit score. Credit scores are concerned with credit activity, not investment activity.

It’s important to focus on what truly impacts your credit score: payment history, credit utilization, length of credit history, types of credit used, and recent credit inquiries. By understanding what factors do not affect your credit score, you can better prioritize financial decisions that truly matter.