As soon as I was 18, I couldn’t wait to do two things: buy a lottery ticket and get my own credit card. I lost my first $10 and gave up on the former, but I didn’t even have to try to get the latter. I got a phone call merely a few weeks after my birthday with a survey from a credit card company — they wanted to issue me my own card. Ten minutes on the phone and one week later, I had that little piece of plastic magic in my hand — and a whole new mess of troubles.

In the age of the credit crunch, credit scores are the passport to your financial future. The new year has brought many things, and with it, a new scoring model. We spoke to Ken Lin, CEO of Credit Karma (a website that lets you check your credit score for free — anytime, anywhere) about the change in the FICO credit scoring model to get a better idea of what the changes are and how they will affect you.

Obtaining credit scores has always been an enormous hassle. You go to Annual Credit Report and request it, then you get it and it shows you the report – but not the score. That’ll be an extra $8. The sheer amount of hoops you have to jump through just to get something that should come free of charge has reached a whole new level of ridiculous. But fear not, for today is a new day. And Credit Karma has forever changed the way you’ll get your credit score; making it quick, simple, and best of all free.