Your credit score not only determines your interest rates, but it could also determine your eligibility for that new job you have applied for. Like it or not, your credit score is an important number. Some of the most common questions our clients ask us are, how can they improve, build, and maintain their credit scores?
Tips to Raise Your Credit Score
- Pay your accounts on time. When you pay your bills 30 days late it could result in a negative credit reporting and could effective your score.
- Borrow no more than you can comfortably pay back. Avoid maxing out your credit cards. Limit your utilization to no more than 30% of your available credit. Practice good spending habits by charging something simple like your gas and then paying off the whole balance at the end of the month. This will help you to develop good spending habits while building your credit.
- Be cautious about co-signing or guaranteeing loans for others. By co-signing or guaranteeing a loan you are a joint account holder and equally responsible for funds owed. Your credit report will also be equally affected by negative reportings.
- Do not apply for credit you do not need. We know that store retail accounts are tempting with their promotional offers, but when you read the fine print they often have high interest rates. If you choose to do one of those 0% deals for a year, make sure you can pay it off in the time allotted because after the expiration date the interest rate will shoot upwards of 20% which will end up being very costly.
- Pull and review your credit report annually and dispute inaccurate information. You can pull your credit report from each bureau once per year for free at: annualcreditreport.com. By reviewing your credit report annually, you can catch any inaccurate reporting or suspected identity theft.
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