There is no instant repair for improving your credit score. Your credit score takes into account your years of past and present actions with regards to your finances. Consistency is the key to changing and improving your credit score and here are 3 things that you can do that will surely help you steer your credit score in the right direction.
Pay your bills on time
Being delinquent and remitting late payments for your monthly bills have a tremendous negative effect on your credit score. Credit payments have an especially major effect when it comes to your credit score so you have to be very careful to pay these on time. Paying only half of what’s due before the deadline in order to juggle your finances also has a negative effect on your credit score. So might as well manage what you spend and pay all of your bills on time.
Now that online banking is available to us, many banks offer payment reminders as an added service to their clients and you may want to consider enrolling your account in this so that you will be reminded every month when your bill comes due. You can also take advantage of the auto debit services you’re your credit card or directly from your bank account. This allows the different service providers to automatically deduct your outstanding bills from your account as they come due. This will ensure that you do not miss out on the payments and that you don’t pay anything additional for late charges. Although these tools are effective in helping you pay your bills on time, it does not solve the problem of being able to handle your finances. It’s a good start but still you would have to make an effort to improve your money handling skills and find a technique that will work for you in the long run.
Managing your credit cards
Qualifying to have a credit card already increases your credit score but be wary with how you use it because it greatly affects your standing as well. Remember that one of the major factors that affect your credit score is how much credit you have now and how much of that you have used up. Keeping the percentage to a minimum will boost your credit score. You can do this by paying off your balances on your credit card and if you are unable to pay them all off, it is best to keep the balances low.
You must also check on your credit card balances regularly and get rid of any nuisance balances. These are credit card balances that are very small that you sometimes choose not to pay them off to give way to larger balances. Your credit score also considers how many out of all your cards you have balances on. Refrain from distributing your purchases on all your cards, and instead charge them all on one or 2 cards, keeping the others charge free.
If you trust yourself not to spend too much, you can request for your credit card company to increase your credit limits. Also, do not cancel any credit cards as this will cause the total amount of credit available to you to drop and will not have a positive effect on your credit score.
Watch out for errors
Regularly request for a copy of your credit report and watch out for any errors in the entries made. If you find any errors in the credit report, make a dispute right away with the credit bureau as well as the reporting agency. There are several resources available online where you can dispute errors in your credit scores. Mistakes do happen, so make sure you protect yourself and ensure that all the information out there about your finances are true and accurate.