How to Raise Your Credit Score Fast | Auto Sales and Finance

Credit scores—they’re like report cards for grown-ups. It’s a three-digit “grade” you get on a scale that ranges from 300 to 850. Your score indicates your creditworthiness to potential lenders, banks, landlords, insurance companies, and even to some employers, for instance. I’m sure you know that the higher your score the better.

Where Can You Get Your Credit Report and Score for Free?

You can get your credit report from each of the three major reporting agencies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—for free once a year at annualcreditreport.com. But credit reports don’t include your actual credit score—you usually have to pay for those. However, I recently joined Credit Karma, at creditkarma.com, where you can actually get it for free!

What’s a Good Credit Score?

Creditors establish their own guidelines and break points for doling out credit. But here’s what credit scores can mean for your personal finances:

• 300-580: You’ll be denied credit or will only be approved for the very highest, most costly interest rates.
• 581-650: You may qualify for credit at high interest rates.
• 651-710: You’ll qualify for credit at moderate interest rates.
• 711-750: You’ll qualify for credit at competitive interest rates.
• 751 and up: You’ll get the most competitive, lowest interest rates on the market.

Someone with a credit score of 550 might be charged an interest rate that’s three to four percentage points higher than someone who scores over 750. That could translate into paying several thousand more dollars in interest for a $20,000 car loan or over a hundred thousand extra bucks in interest over the life of a 30-year $200,000 mortgage! That’s money you could invest for your retirement instead.

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How to repair my credit and improve my FICO credit score | Auto Sales And Finance

It's important to note that repairing bad credit is a bit like losing weight: It takes time and there is no quick way to fix a credit score. In fact, out of all of the ways to improve a credit score, quick-fix efforts are the most likely to backfire, so beware of any advice that claims to improve your credit score fast. The best advice for rebuilding credit is to manage it responsibly over time. If you haven't done that, then you need to repair your credit history before you see credit score improvement. The tips below will help you do that. They are divided up into categories based on the data used to calculate your credit score.

3 Important Things You Can Do Right Now

1. Check Your Credit Report – Credit score repair begins with your credit report. If you haven't already, request a free copy of your credit report and check it for errors. Your credit report contains the data used to calculate your score and it may contain errors. In particular, check to make sure that there are no late payments incorrectly listed for any of your accounts and that the amounts owed for each of your open accounts is correct. If you find errors on any of your reports, dispute them with the credit bureau and reporting agency.
   
   Read more about Disputing Errors on Your Credit Report
2. Setup Payment Reminders – Making your credit payments on time is one of the biggest contributing factors to your credit score. Some banks offer payment reminders through their online banking portals that can send you an email or text message reminding you when a payment is due. You could also consider enrolling in automatic payments through your credit card and loan providers to have payments automatically debited from your bank account, but this only makes the minimum payment on your credit cards and does not help instill a sense of money management.
3. Reduce the Amount of Debt You Owe – This is easier said than done, but reducing the amount that you owe is going to be a far more satisfying achievement than improving your credit score. The first thing you need to do is stop using your credit cards. Use your credit report to make a list of all of your accounts and then go online or check recent statements to determine how much you owe on each account and what interest rate they are charging you. Come up with a payment plan that puts most of your available budget for debt payments towards the highest interest cards first, while maintaining minimum payments on your other accounts.