Building Credit Scores in 2017
You may be wondering how you can build your credit score, and finance some of your dreams. It’s a good question. If you have poor credit, or you are looking at building credit scores, you found the right place. There are several things you can do right away which will improve it. By doing these few simple things below, you quickly improve your credit scores, with little to no effort.
Pay off your debts
If you have any sort of debt, whether it is a credit card, loan, or another form of debt, try to pay this off as soon as you can. If you can’t pay the debt off completely, try to make a larger payment to reduce the debt as much as possible. When you’re making payments and paying off debt, this will improve your credit score. Part of your credit scores based on how much money you owe. If you’re paying off your debt, it will greatly improve your credit score.
Pay your bills on time
If you let your bills slide each month, you just hurting your credit score. You should pay bills on time as much as possible and try to pay them in full. The more bills and outstanding debts to have the worst this will impact your credit score. If you make proper bill payments, your credit score is going to improve. Late payments are reported to the credit bureau, so you want to ensure that those payments are made on time.
Check your scores
To see where you stand in regard to your credit, you can check your credit score. There are several credit bureaus such is Equifax and CreditKarma which can provide your credit score for you. There are required to give you a free copy each year if your request it. By understanding your credit score, you can see where you can make improvements and where you may be lacking.
You can also check your credit score to see if there’s been an error in your score. By addressing these errors, you can improve your score. In some cases, there can be errors in your credit score and you won’t even know about them. For example, you may make the bill payments on time, but it’s listed as being and not paid on time so you can dispute this. It may take time to dispute errors, but it can be well worth it.
Increase your credit limits
You can increase your credit score, by utilizing more credit. This doesn’t mean that you spend more, just that you increased credit on your credit card, for example. If you owe a lot of money on your credit card, you can increase your credit limit and this will improve your credit score because you’re not as close to your credit limit as you were before. You can also improve the score by simply paying down the credit card bill. If you can’t do this, raise the credit level so your balance is known as close to your credit limit on that card.
Get a new credit card
You can increase your credit level by simply getting a new credit card. Don’t carry a balance on the new card, but your credit level will increase by the amount that is all on that new card. Have the new card while you’re paying off the older card. Just make sure you don’t add any more balances on the new card. If you have older credit cards and the account is still open, you want to hold onto them. If you close the account, then this can impact your credit score in a negative way at least in the short-term periods
These are just some of the ways you can build credit. If you need additional help or want to learn more see a financial planner as they can help you work with you and address your individual financial needs.