Credit Tips
Tips to Improve Your Credit Score
- Pay your bills on time. Your payment history is a major factor (35% of your score) in determining your credit score. If you pay your bills late, or had an account referred to collections, your credit score will take a major hit.
- Sign up for online banking and make sure your regular recurring bills are paid automatically. This way you will not forget a payment that will wind up reducing your credit score.
- Increase your credit limit. Another large factor is the amount of your debt in relation to your credit limit. If you have a card with a $10,000 credit limit and your balance is $9,000, this will not help to improve your score. To make the debt/credit limit ratio look better, you can try to call your credit card company and request an increase in your credit limit. Don’t use the extra credit though! That defeats the whole purpose and puts you further in debt! A general rule of thumb is to try and keep the credit card balance below 50% of the credit card limit.
- Don’t apply for many cards at once. This will not improve your credit score because this is a characteristic of high credit risk groups.
- Don’t ever close an open credit card account. If you pay off a credit card down to a zero balance, leave it open. Remember that a positive factor for your credit score is how much available credit you have atyour disposal when compared to your credit balance, in addition to the length of your credit history.
- Apply for loans within a two-week period. Every time you request a loan and the lender pulls your credit report, it can hurt your score. It is part of the formula that reasons “this person is trying to apply for credit and loans and possibly be trying to live way beyond their means!” If you keep the loan process within a two-week period, all of the credit report lookups are bundled together as one single request!
- Check for errors on your credit report. Examine your credit report for errors and contact the credit reporting agencies to fix any errors on your credit report.
- For the credit card debt that you have outstanding, try and pay more than the minimum payments required. By paying more than the minimum payments, your credit score will increase because it shows that you aremaking an effort to pay down the credit card debt.
If you take action and follow these tips, you will be able to give your credit score an immediate boost and gradually increase it even more as time passes. The major keys are to pay your bills on time and reduce your debt amounts when compared to your credit limit. This has a twofold benefit of improving your credit score and reducing your debt.