| Achieving a good credit score through cleaning up a | | | | drops your interest rates go up and it's more difficult to |
| credit report has never been more critical than it is | | | | borrow. That's why credit cards are a trap. However, |
| today. Having good credit not only allows us access to | | | | they are necessary to building good credit. It's best to |
| capital for a home, business loans, auto loans and | | | | have a few credit cards and use them occasionally |
| others, it also saves us thousands upon thousands of | | | | but pay them down quickly. This will establish a nice |
| dollars in interest payments. | | | | healthy credit history and boost your credit score over |
| If you don't have a good credit score, and if you debts | | | | time. |
| get too high, it's very difficult to break out of the debt | | | | Having late payments on your credit report murders |
| cycle. You have to get focused, create a plan, and | | | | your credit score, so making timely payments month |
| lower your debts to raise your credit score. Once you | | | | after month, year after year, like clock work is |
| get on the right path, everything in you life just | | | | essential to maintaining a clean credit report. If you |
| becomes easier. You'll find that your financial picture | | | | have late payments on your report that are accurate |
| gets much rosier and your dollar goes much farther | | | | there is no way to have them removed, just get back |
| when you create a realistic budget and begin paying | | | | on schedule and don't miss anymore payments. |
| down you debts slowly but surely. | | | | Cleaning up a credit report of inaccuracies and taking |
| Why does paying down your debt increase your credit | | | | care of any collections is vital to raising your credit |
| score? Well because lenders don't like to see people | | | | score. Did you realize that a very high percentage of |
| running up too much debt, these people are seen as a | | | | credit reports have negative inaccurate information? |
| high risk because no one can realistically carry too | | | | It's true. If you have any of these false negative items |
| much debt -- the chance of defaulting on some or all | | | | you need to have them removed through disputing |
| of the debt becomes high. | | | | them with the credit bureaus. You can do this on your |
| Thus a large part of our credit score is keeping our | | | | own if you feel comfortable or you can hire a credit |
| debt levels low even though we may have high credit | | | | repair service to do it on your behalf. |
| limits with our lenders. A good rule of thumb is to use | | | | Getting these items removed and any legitimate |
| your credit cards and have a few open lines of | | | | collections paid immediately will clean up a credit report |
| revolving credit, however we should pay the balance | | | | and raise your credit score over time. In order to stop |
| down to below 30% of the credit limit each and every | | | | this from happening in the future using a credit |
| month. | | | | monitoring service is your best option, as they let you |
| A high credit limit isn't free money. If you max out our | | | | know immediately if there's any funny business being |
| credit cards and can't pay off the debt quickly your | | | | reported on any of your three credit reports. |
| credit score is going to drop and when your score | | | | |