Simple Tips for Increasing Your Credit Score
- By Stuart Hunter
- Published 10/6/2009
- Finance
- Unrated
Stuart Hunter
Providing credit repair services since 1991, Lexington Law has helped over 500,000 clients legally take on their credit. Last year alone, Lexington Law helped clients remove over 600,000 negative items from their credit reports.
View all articles by Stuart Hunter3 Quick Tips for Increasing Your Credit Score
Drive-up meals, express shipping, and quick fixes; in our society of impatience, we like things to happen quickly. The same mentality is typical when it comes to increasing our credit score. We all know it is important to have a high credit score and that when practiced over a long enough time period, using credit responsibly will result in a good credit rating. But what if you want results quickly? If you are searching for a simple way you may be able to raise your credit score by a few points, here are three tips:
A few quick fixes are great, but they are not going to be enough to restore a bad credit score. If you're looking to improve a low credit score more than a few points, in less time than it would take for a credit score to improve on its own, you'll need to look beyond simple fixes. Depending on your credit reports, repairing your credit score may require removing the questionable negative items on your credit reports, paying down high account balances, selectively opening new credit accounts, reorganizing your account balances, or a combination of all the above.
Solving credit score problems takes more than quick fixes. It takes time, knowledge, and perseverance to clean up your credit reports. It will be worth it in the end, and in a society where instant results are expected, credit repair proves that there are things worth working for.
- Make your credit card payments immediately before the reporting date to show the lowest balances. To find out the best date to make the payment, your credit report should show what day of the month your creditors are submitting updates to the credit bureaus. When you find out this date, make it a point to make your credit card payments about 3 to 5 days before when the accounts get reported. Your reports will then show the lower outstanding balance, instead of the higher balance, giving your credit score a little boost.
- Use old cards now and then. Most of us have a few older credit cards that were used only once or twice when buying that new bedroom set, or a department store credit card you opened to get 25 percent off your purchase. Take those cards out now and then and use them for small purchases you can easily pay off the next month. These established accounts will then show activity again and that will help out your credit rating.
- Untapped credit is good, so keep your utilization rates at about 30 or less across all of your cards. For example, if your credit limit is $10,000, maintain a balance at or below $3,300. Furthermore, 3 cards with a $3,000 balance on each is better than one card with a $9,000 balance and two cards with a zero balance; same total balance, but better credit score. Although it seems like it shouldn't matter, you will need to learn to play the game to achieve the best score.
A few quick fixes are great, but they are not going to be enough to restore a bad credit score. If you're looking to improve a low credit score more than a few points, in less time than it would take for a credit score to improve on its own, you'll need to look beyond simple fixes. Depending on your credit reports, repairing your credit score may require removing the questionable negative items on your credit reports, paying down high account balances, selectively opening new credit accounts, reorganizing your account balances, or a combination of all the above.
Solving credit score problems takes more than quick fixes. It takes time, knowledge, and perseverance to clean up your credit reports. It will be worth it in the end, and in a society where instant results are expected, credit repair proves that there are things worth working for.