Saturday, February 28, 2009

Improve your Credit Score

By Kay Riter

You should know your credit score and you should strive to get it as high as possible. Your credit must be good if you ever want to get a loan or credit card. You need to know your credit card and continuously work on building it up.

If you don't have excellent credit, you are probably coming from one of two places. Either you have bad credit because you have had a history of not paying your bills on time or you have made some mistakes and not paid off everything entirely, or you have no credit at all. In either of these situations, you might think it will be impossible to get your score up, but it's not. The people who now have excellent credit started somewhere. Everyone starts with no credit and there are many people who have repaired their bad credit.

Without credit, it may seem impossible to get any kind of loan to build credit. You don't have to go out and apply for five credit cards. Any kind of loan payments and other payments can build credit.

If you are good with your money and have someone that can trust you that has good credit, they can cosign for you. For example, if you want to take out a small loan for a car and you have no credit, your parents can cosign with you to get the loan. If you don't pay, your cosigner will have to pay, but of course, you will pay because that is what you need to do to build credit.

You might not need a loan anytime soon. This gives you more time to take a slightly less aggressive approach. Pay all your bills on time. Over time, paying bills such as rent, utilities, and your cell phone will all help to build up your credit. Anything you finance, such as a computer, will also build credit.

I don't recommend financing something you can afford to pay for now, but financing it and paying it in a month or two can build credit and only cost a little in interest. Pay every bill on time and you can build good credit.

Those with bad credit need to take the same advice. Since you have bad credit, you probably weren't very good at paying your bills on time. This needs to stop! Paying your bills on time is the only way to keep your credit from going down and to build it back up.

If you can't pay your bills on time, you need to budget so that you can. If you can't pay your bills on time it means you are living above your means and you need to start cutting out expenses. Cut up your credit cards and pay them off as soon as possible. Credit cards will not help your situation. Credit cards should only be used as a way to build credit as a last resort.

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