Top 5 Easy Things You Can Do Right Now to Begin Credit Repairs

It can definitely be a terrible feeling when you're staring at a low credit score. Not only does it affect your life in so many different practical ways, but it can also just make you feel down all by itself. Fortunately, learning how to repair credit is easier than you think. In fact, there are some things you can either start or stop doing right away to improve your score. Here are just a few of those possibilities.

5-Stop Applying for Credit

This may not be initially intuitive, but every time you apply for a credit card or even do a serious credit check of any kind, this can affect your score. This is usually not more than a few points, but if you're close to the line between "bad" and "fair," for example, then this can make a big difference! This means that if you're trying to get some bonus at a store, such as a 10% discount, by getting their credit card, this could actually make a difference in your score. If you're trying to raise it right away, it helps to stop making these applications.

4-Get Your Credit Percentage Down

One major determiner of your credit is what's called "credit utilization," or in other words, how much of your full credit limit you're using. If you can get that down first, then your credit score should improve immediately. One strange thing about this is that you should not close any of your accounts even after you pay them off. That way, your credit score will remain good because you will have a lower percentage of the total used.

You can calculate this yourself by adding up all the credit you have on all of your different accounts and setting that against how much of it you're using. The magic number here is going to be 30%, so you're going to want to try to stay under this amount of utilization as much as you can. Pay off some more of the balance to stay under it if this is at all possible.

3-Get Payments in on Time

Late payments of any kind can hurt your credit score. It's important to fix any that are late as soon as you can and to try to stop making any more late payments. It ends up being a major determiner of your credit in general. There are a lot of little tricks you can use to make sure you're on time with your payments. For example, if you go to the lender's website where you owe the payment, it's usually possible to change the payment date a bit.

That way, you can make sure that it's posted after when you get your paycheck so you're more likely to be able to pay on time. Another possibility is to call the lender and see if they can forgive the late payment. This is especially true for credit card companies that you've been with for a good long while.

2-Traditional Methods

If you don't have a credit card and never had one, it can help to get one if you have a low score, provided that you pay it off on time from now on, of course. Pay your bills on time and reduce any debt you have as much as possible as often as you can do so. Sometimes, the old and somewhat obvious ways are best.

Having a long credit history genuinely helps your score as well, so it's good to establish it as early as you can. Your future self will thank you, and the positive influence it has may come sooner than you think.

1-Challenge Any Errors

A huge way to impact your score almost immediately starts with noticing anything major on the report that is just incorrect. This could include any of the following:

• Late Payments-If the report says that there were late payments and you're sure this isn't the case, you could contact the three credit bureaus and get this cleared up. According to a study from 2012, 1 in 5 reports contained mistakes from at least one of the bureaus. So, this does happen. The report went on to say that 20% of those who got a correction got enough of a boost to their credit score that they could get out of a risk tier that resulted in lower auto loan rates.
• Items Older Than 7 Years-If there are items on the report that are super old, they likely don't belong on there. It's most likely worth disputing them.
• Unreported Credit Accounts-As you look over the report, it helps to ensure that they are listing all of your credit accounts. This makes a difference for your utilized credit percentage. If you have accounts that are clear of debt, active, but unreported, it's worth clearing this up to lower that percentage!
• Reported Credit That's Not Yours-If there are accounts on the report that you don't remember opening, it's worth checking to make sure that you didn't open the accounts. You can then tell the agency and get any of these mistakes removed.

Once you identify potential mistakes, you need to file a dispute separately for each error, and with each credit bureau that had the mistake. This is going to take some time, but it's almost always worth it since your score can improve right away.

Overall, finding a professional to help you with any or all of these options are also going to be a strong way to help improve your situation.