Boost Your Credit Score: Proven Tips to Manage and Improve Your Credit

When You Speak with Your Credit Consultant

Share with us your specific credit goals or any challenges you’re currently facing. This will help us recommend the most effective products, tools, and services we offer that are tailored to your needs and can help you increase your credit scores.

General Credit Advice:

It’s important to note that raising your score is like losing weight: It takes time and there is no quick fix. In fact, quick-fix efforts can backfire. The best advice is to manage credit responsibly over time. See how much money you can save by just following these tips and raising your score.

Payment History Tips:

1. Pay Your Bills On Time:
   Delinquent payments and collections can have a major negative impact on your score. If you’ve missed payments, get current and stay current. The longer you pay your bills on time, the better your score.
   
2. Paying Off Collection Accounts:
   Paying off a collection account will not remove it from your credit report. It will stay on your report for seven years.
   
3. Contact Your Creditors:
   If you’re struggling to make ends meet, contact your creditors. This won’t improve your score immediately, but if you can begin to manage your credit and pay on time, your score will improve over time.
   

Amounts Owed Tips:

1. Keep Balances Low on Credit Cards:
   High outstanding debt can affect your score.
   
2. Pay Off Debt Instead of Moving It Around:
   The most effective way to improve your score is by paying down your revolving credit. In fact, owing the same amount but having fewer open accounts may lower your score.
   
3. Don’t Close Unused Credit Cards:
   Don’t close unused credit cards as a short-term strategy to raise your score.
   
4. Avoid Opening Unnecessary Credit Cards:
   Don’t open a number of new credit cards that you don’t need just to increase your available credit. This could backfire and lower your score.
   

Length of Credit History Tips:

1. Don’t Open New Accounts Too Rapidly:
   If you’ve been managing credit for a short time, opening a lot of new accounts quickly will lower your average account age, which will have a bigger impact on your score if you don’t have a lot of other credit history.
   
2. New Credit Tips:
   
   • Rate Shopping: Do your rate shopping for a given loan within a focused period of time. Scores distinguish between a search for a single loan and a search for many new credit lines based on the length of time over which inquiries occur.
     
   • Re-establishing Credit: If you’ve had credit problems in the past, open new accounts responsibly and pay them off on time to raise your score.
     

Types of Credit Use Tips:

1. Apply for New Credit Only as Needed:
   Don’t open accounts just to have a better credit mix, as it probably won’t raise your score.
   
2. Have Credit Cards – But Manage Them Responsibly:
   In general, having credit cards and installment loans (and making timely payments) will help raise your score. Someone with no credit cards is considered higher risk than someone who has managed credit cards responsibly.
   
3. Closing Accounts:
   Closing an account doesn’t make it go away. A closed account will still show up on your credit report and may be considered when calculating your score.
   

Improve Your Credit Score:

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Even though you may be out of school, your credit report still acts like a report card for your financial life. If you want to buy a house, a car, or another large-ticket item, a lender will look at your “grade” as soon as you come knocking. That grade is your credit score.

Your credit score measures the likelihood that you’ll repay what you owe, based on information in your credit report. The rewards of raising your score speak directly to your wallet: you’ll qualify for more loans and be offered better interest rates.

Steps to Better Credit:

1. Correct Blatant Mistakes:
   Review your credit reports from all three credit bureaus for accuracy once a year, and several months before applying for a loan. Correcting mistakes on your report can take 30 days to three months or longer.
   
2. Pay Your Bills On Time:
   This is always crucial, especially close to the time you need a loan. A late or missed payment in the last few months can significantly lower your score.

Reduce Your Credit Card Balances:

A large factor in your FICO score is the amount of money you owe relative to your credit limit. Aim to keep your balances at or below 25% of your credit card limit.