We all are aware that Credit, more importantly, good Credit, is essential to being on the right financial track in life. According to CaptalOne, your Credit Score can determine a lot more than the chances of you qualifying for a loan.
Financial Stability is one step closer to Financial Freedom. I want to help you build up or improve your Credit Score!
Follow These 5 Steps to Achieve Perfect Credit:
- Don’t use more than 33% of your available credit limit.
- Meaning if you have a credit card with a $1,000 limit don’t use more than $333 in a given month. The true numbers are based on total debt available for use but this is the simplest way to break it down.
- Pay your bills on time.
- Which is a given, but many people don’t realize that you have a grace period with some bills before the company reports it to the credit bureaus so if you are only a day or so late or so make sure that you call the company. If it’s your first late- many companies will remove the late fee and not report it to the credit bureaus at all.
- Carrying some debt is a good thing.
- It shows that you can handle debt and pay it off, which essentially shows that you are a good candidate for debt and increase your credit score. Some debt that many people have car payments (some companies are even offering 0% promo specials for financing right now, reporting your rental if you are renting or your mortgage if you own a home.
- Monitor and double-check.
- Sometimes things can appear on your credit that you don’t even know about that can hurt your credit down the road. Many credit card companies and banks have free credit monitoring as a service to their customers. Set that up so that you can see what’s going on with your score at all times and get alerts if there is an activity that is out of the ordinary.
- Negotiate down old debt and get on a payment plan.
- Medical bills that you didn’t even know about. Sometimes these things creep up on your credit and you don’t even know about them or they are old and you ‘don’t want to deal with it.’ If you are in this position, take this as a sign to call today- even if you can’t or don’t want to pay the bill in full- getting on a payment plan with the company will show good faith and help you build your credit again. Oftentimes, if you call the debt collector and you are able to pay a good portion up front, they may be willing to negotiate. It’s worth a try to save you money + increase your credit score which will save + make you money in the future!
Interested in discussing how to get your perfect credit even further?
