FREE CREDIT ADVICE TO RAISE YOUR FICO SCORE
Everyone knows how important it is to have good credit. But just how important is it.
“It is very easy to show how poor credit can cost you over $300,000 over your lifetime, perhaps even more” says Frank Atrash, Association Director of The National Credit Education Association, NCREAS (pronounced Increase). “That’s just the direct financial implication of a home loan, credit cards and car loan” he says, “once you start figuring out the lifestyle and job implications the impact can easily double”. Everything is impacted from health, to self esteem to schooling for your children and their future. “It is probably the most important three digit number in your life” said Atrash.
Some advice is simple:
Pay your bills on time: Easy to say and hard to do. If you have the money it’s as simple as doing your bills on the 15th and 30th of every month or even arranging for an automatic payment. Just make sure there is money in the bank! If you do just that one thing, you will over time improve your credit.
There is a little known secret that is important as well. Have as few cards as possible. Consumers should have the same number of Installment debts as Revolving Debts. Most people have 2 or 3 installment debts and 7-10 revolving ones. However do not cancel cards without careful consideration or you could damage your credit.
Another good thing to do is to balance your outstanding amounts over all your cards. If you use 100% of your available credit on one card and 15% on the others your credit will not be as good as if you have 30% on all your cards. Obviously then it is better to have as low a balance as possible on all of them.
There are many more things that you can do to imrove your FICO. To receive the correct information as to how to improve your credit, please request the correct report below:
If your credit score is over 720, request report # C1 If your score is between 640 and 720, request report # C2 If your score is lower than 640, request report # C3 |