How To Fix My Credit Score In 6 Months
When we are young and naïve, we take for granted the things that we have access to, which often leads us into a territory unknown to us: debt. And with debt comes a damaged credit score that a lot of us don’t even really care about.
Well, fast-forward a few years down the road, and suddenly, we’re tired of living in apartments with screaming kids, and we want to buy a home. Well, here comes the problem: we need a good credit score to get a loan for said house.
So, how can you fix your credit score in 6 months?
Monitor your Credit Score
You’re not going to be able to bring up that credit score if you don’t know what it is and aren’t watching the way it fluctuates. Websites like credit karma will show you your credit score and give you unlimited, free access to help you to monitor it.
Every time you pay a credit line bill, check your score and watch how it goes up. Pay attention to the little tips that credit karma gives on how to improve your score and act on them.
Monitoring your credit score will also give you the insight needed on what directly affects your score and what you should pay more mind to. In other words, this is the best way to gain a better understanding of what will build your credit and what will demolish it.
Monitoring your score is the obvious first step to work on building your credit. This is how you know where you stand and what needs the most attention.
Pay Your Credit Card Bills on Time
This is, without a doubt, the best way to go about raising your credit score. If you don’t already have a credit card, I highly recommend that you get one.
Even with a bad credit score, there are credit cards out there you can apply for solely for the purpose of improving your score. They aren’t the best, but you can’t expect a platinum credit card if you have a terrible score.
Paying the annual fee is worth it if you watch your spending and payments. Buy something every month with your card and as soon as you get the bill, pay it immediately.
Being consistent with credit card payments and showing responsibility will do wonders for your credit score.
Keep Credit Card Utilization Low
The biggest mistake that people make when they get a credit card is that they go on a shopping spree and max out the card before paying it off. This will actually do more harm than good to your credit score.
In order to improve your credit score as quickly as possible, you need to spend small amounts at a time—the less that you spend and are using your cards, the better.
It doesn’t mean to get a card and never use it. Never using the card will do nothing in terms of raising your credit score,
The way I do it is by buying something once a month that I would be buying anyway. It can be something as simple as pizza for dinner.
Limit Hard Inquiries
The previous option requires applying for a credit card if you don’t already have one, and that puts a hard inquiry onto your credit score. Hard inquiries hit your score every time you apply for something that has to do with your credit, such as credit cards and loans.
They place a negatory mark on your score and last for two years. They don’t show as negative for those entire two years, but still, you don’t want to be applying for credit lines left and right.
This is especially true if you already have multiple credit lines to your name. Even if you have the money to be able to keep up with payments for them all, you are hurting your score by constantly applying for more.
It can be difficult to juggle since having multiple lines active could actually help your credit score, but just applying for a card for the sake of letting it sit there when you’re trying to fix your score is not a good idea.
Don’t Let Your Accounts Close
The more credit cards that you have active, the better it looks on your credit score. That doesn’t mean that you go crazy using all of your cards and running yourself into payments that you can’t handle.
By having multiple accounts open, it helps to increase the “age” of your credit accounts, and by owing little to nothing on multiple cards, it makes it look like you are doing a fine job on keeping up with your payments.
With multiple credit cards active, you’re doing your credit score a huge favor, and it boosts your score way more than if you only had to one card. Still only use the one card to make it easier to keep up with payments, but don’t actually close accounts on others you are not using.
As mentioned before, this doesn’t mean to apply for a credit card purely for the reason of working to raise your credit score. This can do more harm than good; this is more for credit lines that you may already have active before deciding to fix your score.
Dispute Errors
Though they aren’t common, sometimes your derogatory marks have errors in them or are completely incorrect altogether. If this is the case with some of yours, dispute the case, and there’s a chance that you can have it removed from your credit report.
When you have a case removed from your report by disputing it, it can bring your score up immensely. Carefully go through each and every single derogatory remark to check for these errors; this is especially true if you don’t even remember where a specific one came from.
Numerous people have the same names, and even a social security number that is different by only one digit can sometimes cause an error to occur. Make sure that your score isn’t hurting because of something that wasn’t even your fault to begin with.
No matter what could cause the issue in your credit report, the point is that you can dispute the case, and have it removed for not being correct.
Apply for Debt Relief
If the reason behind your terrible credit score is a massive debt due to credit cards, then I recommend that you apply for debt relief for the fastest and best possible help you can get. I personally recommend national debt relief since it has helped so many people over the years.
By working to eradicate your debt, your credit score will rise, and you will be one huge step closer to getting that score you are aiming for. Not only will you be getting your credit score back on track, but you’ll have relief in knowing that you owe a lot less money.
It is a good way of quickly raising your score, but it’s also great for you in the long run. When you get help with debt relief, you have the chance to get back on top of your life and keep it manageable.
Don’t Fall Behind on Any Bills
Keeping up with all of your bills, not just your credit lines, but your utilities and rent as well. All of your bills impact your credit score, and the more you keep up with your payments, the better that it looks on your credit report.
Whenever you are late on payments, it shows up as a negative mark on your score, so the best way to keep that from happening is to ensure everything is on time. Make sure everything is paid on time by using autopay on everything you can and having reminders go off for the things that you can’t.
Even if these things don’t appear on your credit report, these are things that creditors look for whenever you apply for a big loan. Don’t give them any kind of reason to deny you; get it all paid.
Conclusion
By utilizing all of these tips, you should be able to get more score up enough. I believe that with enough hard work and effort, anybody can do it.
It just requires a lot of management and monitoring your score. Then once you have it built up to the reason you needed, you can continue to build up your credit score and shine in ways you never thought you could.
The majority of building your credit score all boils down to being responsible with your spending and ensuring that all of your bills are paid on time. All things that you should be used to doing in the first place.
Then once you get your score to where you need it and you start going forward with your life, you have even better management skills than you had before.
