Your credit score is sort of the first impression you can give to a potential lender. By pulling your credit, they are able to see your history as a borrower including how timely you pay your bills, how much credit you extend yourself, not to mention any blemishes that may appear. Not only can a low credit score cause a denial on a loan application, but even if approved, you could be a paying a high interest rate that can add on a significant amount, especially on higher balances such as a mortgage. By continuously improving your credit score you can be sure you can secure the best interest rate on the market.
Check Credit Report Every Year
This may be something you do a couple times a year, but at least should be check annually as you’re able to get a free copy of your full report from the major credit bureaus. By reviewing your report you can ensure all of your information and accounts are accurate and up to date, but just keep in mind that it may take the report a month or two to catch up, if you’re expecting to see a dent in your balance since you last paid or even taking out a new account.
Keep Up on Your Credit Score
While getting a copy of your free credit report will not show your credit score, you certainly can pay for it, but there’s an even easier way to review your score every month, and that is by looking on your monthly credit card statement. There you are able to see how your score moves from month to month depending on your credit utilization, so it’s good to keep the balance down, or at least pay off the balance every month, in order to continuously improve.
Stay Within a Budget
Credit cards can be great for earning free rewards in points or even cashback, but they can also be scary at the same time as there really is not a hard stop from using, I guess unless you hit your credit limit, so it’s your responsibility as a cardholder to ensure you avoid a rising balance. By sticking to a household budget, you can hopefully reduce unnecessary spending and stick your allocated spending allowance. This will help keep your balance down to keep your available credit as high as you can to maximize your score.
Pay Your Bills on Time
Now while you won’t get any points for paying early, so even on the due date is fine, but it’s when you’re late is where trouble arises. Being even a day late may cost you a late fee or even an interest rate spike, but when you hit thirty day you will see a negative impact on your credit report that could take up to seven years to come off, even if it was a mistake. If you have many payments to juggle or want to even be safe, you can always schedule your payments to come out so you can avoid any second guessing if you made the payment or not.
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