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CreditSmart® Curriculum

CreditSmart and CreditSmart Español features 12 complete financial education modules:

  1. Your Credit and Why It Is Important
  2. Managing Your Money
  3. Goal Setting
  4. Banking Services: An Important Step
  5. Establishing and Maintaining Credit
  6. Understanding Credit Scoring
  7. Thinking Like a Lender
  8. Avoiding Credit Traps
  9. Restoring Your Credit
  10. Planning For Your Future
  11. Becoming a Homeowner
  12. Preserving Homeownership: Protecting Your Home Investment

For your convenience, you can download CreditSmart and CreditSmart Español's abridged versions of the curriculum:

  • Your Credit, Your Home, and Your Future
  • Su crédito, su casa y su futuro

CreditSmart Asian showcases the best of CreditSmart in a three-part series of multilingual guidebooks, available in Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. For quick and easy access, you can download CreditSmart Asian's guidebooks:

  • The Importance of Good Credit
  • Steps to Homeownership
  • Homeowner Benefits and Responsibilities
CreditSmart Modules

  1. Your Credit and Why It Is Important
    Freddie Mac believes that the single most effective way to prepare consumers for homeownership is to educate them on the importance of using credit wisely. This module introduces credit, basic terminology, and the importance of building a better credit record.

  2. Managing Your Money
    Explains the importance of developing a spending plan and developing wise spending habits, and provides tips on how to save money.

  3. Goal Setting
    Describes the importance of setting goals to achieve financial objectives.

  4. Banking Services: An Important Step
    Provides information on the basics of banking and the importance of establishing a relationship with a financial institution to build credit, save money, and achieve goals.

  5. Establishing and Maintaining Good Credit
    Provides information on how to establish a credit presence and maintain a good credit history. The module also reviews the contents of a credit report, as well as the primary credit and consumer protection laws.

  6. Understanding Credit Scoring
    Describes credit scoring from a borrower's perspective and illustrates how consumer behavior affects credit scores.

  7. Thinking Like a Lender
    Explains how lenders and other financial institutions determine creditworthiness and how it relates to credit scores.

  8. Avoiding Credit Traps
    Provides tips to avoid credit traps, identity theft, and predatory lending practices that can consume personal resources and severely damage credit histories.

  9. Restoring Your Credit
    Explains how to deal with credit difficulties and provides tips on how to restore impaired credit.

  10. Planning for Your Future
    Outlines the process to achieve goals and attain financial security.

  11. Becoming a Homeowner
    Provides practical information on how to prepare to obtain a mortgage and own a home.

  12. Preserving Homeownership: Protecting Your Home Investment
    This newest curriculum module contains a wealth of information on understanding home equity, maintaining and improving your home, preparing for emergencies, and recognizing scams. It also includes a comprehensive section on alternatives to foreclosure.


For More Information

As an additional resource to purchasing and owning a home, visit Freddie Mac's online homebuying guide, Buying and Owning.

To learn more about how to attend a CreditSmart workshop, contact one of our collaborating organizations.

Learn more about how you can bring the CreditSmart curriculum to your organization.