Credit check: the two words that stand between you and your new car or home. You’ve paid all of your bills on time for the last five years, so you should have a high credit score, right? Think again. You can have great financial sense but no credit score whatsoever.

In fact, according to American Public Media’s Marketplace Money, 50 million Americans have no credit or a “thin credit file,” specifically younger adults, immigrants, divorced women and those who lead a cash-only lifestyle. But that doesn’t mean forgoing major purchases. New methods of calculating credit can give consumers an alternative credit report, turning your zero into an accurate reflection of your fantastic financial habits.

Pay Rent Build Credit (PRBC) allows consumers to get a credit rating using rent and bill payments, like cable, phone, insurance, gas, electric, cell phone and daycare. Major credit bureaus don’t collect this billing information unless you’re late making payments. To get a credit number using PRBC, submit your payment history via the company’s website and you’ll receive a standard, three-digit score, which can be used to obtain car loans, mortgages and better interest rates.

The FICO Expansion score is a comparable service that determines credit risk scores based on a different set of data from PRBC: “deposit account records, pay day loan cashing, and purchase payment plan performance.” The FICO Expansion score is a newer resource and was created by Fair Isaac, the same company that provides lenders with traditional credit reports.

Experian recently created its Emerging Credit Score that draws on purchase and payment history. And sometimes, banks or lenders can devise a non-traditional credit report for consumers that pulls relevant data to decide whether they should make a deal. Taking out a loan and quickly paying it back can raise your credit number.

Expect to see more alternative credit reports soon. The thin-file and no-file consumers represent a large, untapped market for lenders, which, according to the Center for Financial Services Innovation, could bring forth $6 billion to $45 billion in loans per year.