Tips for improving your credit score
While on the journey of credit repair you must not forget the other half, credit rebuilding. The first thing you should do is order your credit reports free at annualcreditreport.com. Look over each of your credit reports and highlight the negative accounts. Although it is faster to dispute your accounts online, I have found that it is more effective to handwrite my disputes and send them by mail. This also allows you to submit a more detailed dispute instead of the generic reasons the online dispute offers.
Once you have sent your disputes to the three major credit bureaus, you will have a 30 to 45 day wait for the results. During this time work on rebuilding positive tradelines. If your scores are below 600 open a secured credit card. Another credit card available to consumers with low credit scores is Crown Jewelers (crownjewelers.com). Crown Jewelers will not pull your credit and if you purchase anything online (I suggest the cheapest item you can find) they will give you a $1500 credit limit and report the account to the credit bureaus. If you have a parent, relative, or friend who has a credit card account in good standing(no lates), with a low balance, ask them to make you an authorized user on the account.
This will not only improve your score, it may also help you while applying for credit of your own. If the account is 10 years old, it will add age to your report and this will also boost your scores. It is very important that you pay all of your bills on time. One late payment can drop your score by as much as 80 points. The myth that you should only have a couple of credit card accounts is completely unfounded. It does not matter how many accounts you have, it is how you manage those accounts.
I have 22 credit cards and great credit. If you have credit cards the key is to keep the utilization between 0% and 3%. Fair Isaac takes into account your utilization on each individual account as well as all revolving accounts as a whole. The road to great credit is age of accounts, utilization and no late payments. The only reliable source for your true fico score is www.myfico.com. You can reach your credit score goal if you play your "cards" right.
Once you have sent your disputes to the three major credit bureaus, you will have a 30 to 45 day wait for the results. During this time work on rebuilding positive tradelines. If your scores are below 600 open a secured credit card. Another credit card available to consumers with low credit scores is Crown Jewelers (crownjewelers.com). Crown Jewelers will not pull your credit and if you purchase anything online (I suggest the cheapest item you can find) they will give you a $1500 credit limit and report the account to the credit bureaus. If you have a parent, relative, or friend who has a credit card account in good standing(no lates), with a low balance, ask them to make you an authorized user on the account.
This will not only improve your score, it may also help you while applying for credit of your own. If the account is 10 years old, it will add age to your report and this will also boost your scores. It is very important that you pay all of your bills on time. One late payment can drop your score by as much as 80 points. The myth that you should only have a couple of credit card accounts is completely unfounded. It does not matter how many accounts you have, it is how you manage those accounts.
I have 22 credit cards and great credit. If you have credit cards the key is to keep the utilization between 0% and 3%. Fair Isaac takes into account your utilization on each individual account as well as all revolving accounts as a whole. The road to great credit is age of accounts, utilization and no late payments. The only reliable source for your true fico score is www.myfico.com. You can reach your credit score goal if you play your "cards" right.
