You Can Fix Your Credit In Seven Steps
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
When you see those advertisements that say you can fix your own credit it’s understandable that you’re skeptical, but there is some small grains of truth to them – there are some things that you can do to make your credit better on your own. That will help you raise your credit score and will work to your advantage when you try to get a loan in the future, but you have to be willing to put in the work. Step one is to know what’s on your credit report and why it’s there, because it’s pretty hard to fix something or improve upon it if you don’t have any starting point for it.
Step two is to take a careful look at all three of your credit reports – you should have one from Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian – and see if they match up or if there are some different things on some of them that are not on the others. A discrepancy could mean that some of your credit information was incorrectly reported or that some of the information on your report isn’t even yours, and that could be hurting your credit score. Contacting the credit bureaus and asking that these things be removed is what you should do, and they have to remove the items if they cannot absolutely prove that they are yours, after which they’ll send you a new credit report so you can see that the correction has been made.
Step three involves how many active credit accounts you really have, since having a good credit score requires at least three active accounts. When someone only has one or two accounts, especially if those accounts are only credit cards and not longer-standing accounts like vehicle loans or mortgages, it doesn’t show a strong history of being able to handle credit properly. You can get more accounts if you don’t have enough to have a great credit rating, but you should be careful doing that, since getting too many accounts too quickly can harm your credit – and that’s especially true if those accounts are just credit cards.
Step four is a crucial one if you know someone who has good credit and who trusts you, because it’s not a step that you can do on your own. What you want to do here is get that trusted person to add you as an authorized user on their credit cards without actually giving you the card to use – that way you won’t be spending or adding up debt, but you will be getting the benefit of their good credit added to your credit report. Only do this with a person who has had the card for at least two years and who has not been late with a payment, though, because their credit problems with that card would also attach to your report, as well.
Step five is one of the most difficult for most people because it involves the paying down of debt, and it can take a while for a lot of people to get their credit card debt down to the magic 30 – 50% of the total available credit. Having high balances makes you look irresponsible, though, and that hurts your credit score. In order to avoid that, pay your balances down until they are all below 30% of what you’re allowed to borrow on the card and then keep them there so that you’ll show potential future creditors that you’re responsible with your money and your credit.
Step six is to let those paid-off, open credit card accounts stay open, and don’t close them out just because you’ve paid them off. When you close out accounts they drop off of your credit report after seven years, so you’ll stop getting ‘good credit’ points for them, and you don’t want to do that. Some accounts like car loans and mortgages do that automatically, but credit cards will stay open as long as you don’t close them and you use them occasionally, so be sure to keep your credit strong by doing that.
Probably the easiest step of all is step seven, but it’s also a long-term step, and that’s to maintain what you’ve managed to get where good credit is concerned. Don’t pay off your old debt just so you can add up a bunch of new debt, and you’ll not only have more money but you’ll be better able to get credit in the future for something that you really need if you don’t have a bunch of other debt. If you only get credit for things that you really need (vehicle, house, etc) and use your credit cards sparingly, you’ll be much better suited to having a really high credit score and not worrying about your ability to get credit when you absolutely need it.