How To Quickly Improve Your Credit Score

Last updated on: November 15, 2012 at 9:12 pm by Tim

How To Quickly Improve Your Credit Score 2012-11-15T21:12:09-05:00 Tim

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Although most people don’t think about it on a regular basis, your credit score is perhaps the most important number in your life. If it’s low, it can cost you a lot of money in extra interest charges, higher insurance premiums, and higher deposits when you buy something on credit. While having a poor credit score can be damaging, the good news is that you can improve it. If you damage it, it can be repaired. Here are a few tips on how to boost your credit score relatively quickly.

1. Fix Credit Report Errors

Credit bureaus are the agencies that are in charge of creating your credit scores, and they aren’t perfect. Sometimes, they get things wrong, and they don’t calculate your score correctly. Get copies of all of your credit reports from the major credit bureaus, and then scour them for any potential errors. If you find something, you can write to the credit bureau and provide documentation of the error, asking them to fix it.

2. Pay Down Debt

Another relatively quick technique that you can use to fix your credit is to pay down existing debt. One of the most prominent factors that the credit bureaus look at when they are calculating your credit score is how much debt you have in relation to how much available credit you have. If you can successfully pay your debt down, it can boost your credit substantially.

3. Spread the Debt Around

When determining your number, they look to see if your debt is below roughly 30 percent of your credit. If you have one credit account that is maxed out, it will hurt your score. If you’ll spread that debt out around a few different accounts, it can help your score almost right away.

4. Negotiate With Your Creditors

In many cases, you may be able to negotiate something with your creditors to help save your credit profile. Many creditors will be willing to work with you as long as they can get their money. Sometimes, they’ll agree to work out a payment plan with you and remove any negative statements from your report. Since the credit bureaus pay special attention to the negative comments from your creditors, this can make a pretty big difference overall. You might be surprised how much creditors will agree to if you simply pay them what you owe.

5. Get on Schedule

The most important factor that credit bureaus look at when calculating your score is your payment history. If you are never late on a payment and you never skip one, this will make your credit score much better overall. If you start to occasionally make late payments or you skip a payment completely, it will have drastic effects on your credit score. If you can get in the habit of always making every single payment on time, it can make a huge difference in your score. This one may take a little bit longer to make a difference, but every month that you pay on time helps your score a bit.

6. Leave Accounts Open

While you do want to pay down or pay off debt, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to close out your accounts right away. Credit bureaus look at the amount of time that you have had your account open when calculating your score. Having an account open longer helps your chances of increasing your score.

With some of these strategies, you should be able to get your credit score moving in the right direction. Just stick to them and you’ll be surprised how quickly they can work.

This was a guest post from RefinanceMortgageRates.org. Visit their site for mortgage tools such as rate tables or calculators.

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