How to Fix Your Own Credit

Fixing your credit can be similar to working to lose weight. It requires time and perseverance. There is no quick fix for a bad credit record. Effective credit repair allows you to access lower interest rates and better credit terms when borrowing for personal expenses or to grow your business. In this post, I’ll be sharing tips on how to fix your own credit.

Understand Your Credit Score

The first thing you need to find out is your credit score. This is to know your limit, and also to apply for only what you can afford. Many banks these days now offer this service from your free online account or you can as well get the information from the credit bureaus. I believe they should give it to you for free every year. These are some of the ways to understand your credit score and help adjust/improve it with time.

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Review Your Credit Report

Your credit score is extracted from your credit report. It plays a significant role in your credit fix, so If you don’t have a copy of your report, you can request a free copy.

Your credit report contains data used to compute your credit score, and just like most reports, it can contain errors. You need to review every aspect of it, to ensure that there were no mistakes or incorrect entries

Check and ensure that no payments were incorrectly entered for any of your accounts. If you find any error on the report, you can dispute them at one of the three credit bureaus.

Contest Negative Marks

If you discover any errors on your report, you need to dispute them with the bureau. To ensure you maximize your dispute efforts, pay close attention to those factors that weigh more heavily on your credit score.

Start with derogatory marks as they weigh higher on your score. Check collection accounts and judgments. Issues of the same collection account appearing more than once are uncommon.

You can lay all your dispute to the bureau, however, bear in mind that some dispute takes longer time than others. After initiating the dispute, the bureau will investigate and pass the final resolution.

Maximize Credit Limits

Another way that you can fix your credit is to raise the spending limit of your credit card. The ratio of your available credit on your card can make a difference in your score. Having a balance above fifty percent of your credit limit can hurt your score, and maxing out your card’s limit will worsen your credit score. You can swiftly contact your credit card company and nicely ask them to increase your card’s limit.

If you have a good credit history, most credit card companies would happily increase your limit, as that would bring them more money. Otherwise, you can pay down your balances to get your ratio increased.

Negotiate With Your Creditors

Sometimes you can run into circumstances that stopped you from paying your credit card bill; you can’t deny that fact, but you can plead with your creditors to erase those accounts that went to collection.

Write to your creditors, offering to pay the remaining balances, if they will report the account as “paid as agreed” or even remove it altogether. Ensure you get the creditor to agree in writing before proceeding with the payment.

You can also write to them emphasizing your previous good payment history and ask for the accounts to be removed.

Create A Budget And Stick To It

This plays a major role in ensuring that we do not repeat unreasonable mistakes. If you do not keep track of your income and expenses, adjusting your credit score will not help you if you have to spend it again. Set sound financial goals and budgets. Make a postal budget; you will need this set aside when you send your credit cards.

Keep Contact Details Of New Credit Bureau

The top three credit bureaus usually receive multiple emails from consumers. Knowing the up-to-date addresses of the three credit bureaus will be an important part of your debt-free trip. This comes in handy when you need to file a dispute concerning credit reports which are not in your favor. My recommendation is to go directly to the offices’ websites to find the most up-to-date address. This is another great tip on the how to fix your own credit list.

Check Your Accounts Regularly

Identity theft can ruin your debt and hurt you once the situation is resolved. Make it a practice to check your accounts regularly. You can also set up an account with a debt monitoring service to view your reports.

Debt settlement will not happen overnight. Anyone who says that is likely to stretch the truth. However, after six months you have a good financial commitment, you will see some improvement. These steps will help you adjust your credit score and in return, you will save thousands on interest payments in a unique time.

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Become An Authorized User

Try as much as possible not to get credit all by yourself, let relations authorize you. If you can’t get credit cards alone, one option you can try is to be included as an authorized user on someone else’s card. This will not only help you increase your credit score but will also help you to increase your income on time as well. Now, this could probably ruin your integrity and can also tarnish your image if you do not stick to the agreed terms.

Hire A Professional Service To Assist You

To save you the stress, and frustration that comes with improving your credit score, you need the services of professionals.  They can help improve your credit score from 100 points to 500 points at a time. It is recommended that when hiring a professional, you should seek in-depth and experience.

Improving your credit report isn’t so hard.  You need to have the right information to know how to go about it.  If you can’t, then it’s best you employ the services of a law firm to dispute your credit report.