
So you are facing financial constraints, as bills pile up and the creditors do not want to lend you funds because of your poor credit rating. There are millions of people today in situations such as yours, whereby obtaining credit cards and loans is near-impossible. The question you should be asking yourself is how you are going to rebuild your score in order to benefit from credit facilities. You may not be in serious debt, but desire to improve your credit score.
You can start doing repairs or improvements by obtaining your credit report. Go over it meticulously; checking for errors such as incorrectly listed late payments and wrong balance entries for your open accounts. Any errors you come across must be disputed with the reporting agency and the credit bureau that receives the reports.
Ensure that all your credit payments are made on time. The moment you take out a loan or use your credit card to make a purchase, you become committed to a repayment schedule. Any time you are late to remit the payments, there is a negative impact on your credit score. Some banks and credit facilities have set up reminder systems to help you stick to the schedule. You access these systems at the online portals, and reminders are sent to you via emails and text messages when the time is due.
Alternatively, consider enrolling in the automatic payment programs provided by the loan or credit card provider. In these programs, the periodic payments are debited automatically from your bank account. However, only the minimum payment is made.
In case there are payments that you have missed to make, update them and ensure that all payments are made on time after making the repairs to your credit. A poor credit history bears no influence to your current state when you have high scores. All the payments that you make on time are included in the credit report sent to the credit bureau, and they reflect good credit management.
Debts are one of the greatest threats to your credit rating. The more debts you amass, the lower your scores get and the less the debts you have, the higher the scores get. Therefore, reduce your debt amount. You can accomplish this by using your credit cards only when absolutely necessary. You can also come up with a plan for your debts payment. Convert your budget into a debt-payment oriented one, whereby the cards that have the highest interest rates get first priority while still ensuring the minimum payments of the other credit accounts is maintained.
Your debts may be serious and difficult for you to manage them. In this case, it is a prudent move to seek the help of a credit counsellor. You will learn the ropes of vital debt management strategies, which will be of use to you now and in future. One of the best strategies that you can learn is debt consolidation. You simply transfer all the balances in your credit accounts into one account that has low interest rates. You can then work out a repayment plan for just one account instead of many. However, you should be careful because there are instances when moving debts and thus having one open account with the same amount can actually lower your credit score.
You need financial acumen to make calculations regarding credit cards that enhance instead of lowering the score. For instance, as tempting as it may be, you should avoid closing the credit cards that are rarely used as a short-term score increment strategy. Also, never entertain the notion that increasing the number of open accounts you have is bound to enhance your credit. This is an approach that has great potential for backfiring, the result of which is a lowered credit score.
Improving your credit score gives you access to credit cards and loan facilities of high value. You also benefit from low interest rates and any other offers in the industry. Start improving your score now for a healthy financial future.
If you have little, no or bad credit, consider asking your bank if they provide secure credit cards, or check out Orchard Bank. These Credit Cards are excellent for improving your credit quickly. Just be sure to read over everything to ensure that you understand how to use them. Try to only use them for smaller purchases here and there and do your best to stay in the 10-20% debt range so that you can quickly pay them off.
You can also ask your bank if they're willing to help you improve your credit with a small loan of around $500. You can do this at multiple banks and pay it off with the other loans if you're able to get them. It's not difficult, just be sure you have $500+ to begin with so that you can pay everything off.
There's a lot of little tricks to repairing or building your credit. Read more of my articles on credit repair here at Galoor to get a better understanding of it all.
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