Can Your Credit Cards Hurt Your Credit Score?

When you ask about building credit, you often hear the advice to get a credit card. This helps establish your history of responsible financial management. It allows other creditors to see how you maintain a credit line and pay your monthly payments on time. However, you may wonder if having a...
Can Your Credit Cards Hurt Your Credit Score?

Understanding Debt Utilization to Improve Your Credit Score

Making your payments on time is the single most important factor in determining your credit score. However, it is not the only factor. Debt utilization is also a big priority and can impact your credit score. In fact, it is often the area people work on when trying to improve a bad credit...
Understanding Debt Utilization to Improve Your Credit Score

Boosting Your Credit Score By Removing a Debt Collection

If you have done any research on credit scores, you probably know that one of the worst things to have on your credit report is a collection. Just one or two of these can give you a bad credit score that will take many months and even years to recover from. If you have some of these accounts on...
Boosting Your Credit Score By Removing a Debt Collection

3 Things You Need to Know About Credit Scores Before Buying a Home

If you are considering buying a home, you need to take some time to think about your credit first. It will play a substantial role in whether you get approved for a mortgage and what kind of rates you will pay. It will even impact what kind of home you can get based on your monthly payments and...
3 Things You Need to Know About Credit Scores Before Buying a Home

Top 4 Tips to Raise Your Credit Score

If you are looking to buy a house in the future, you need to have a good credit score. Even if it is a few months or a year or two away, you can start making decisions that will raise your score. Here are three tips to help you improve your credit rating and have a better score.
Check Your...
Top 4 Tips to Raise Your Credit Score

How Bad Credit Impacts Your Life

Sure, you know you need a good credit score to qualify for a mortgage, but did you know that there are many other ways it impacts your life? Here is a look at some of the ways those three little numbers can make life easier or more difficult.
Insurance
Your insurance company may pull your credit...
How Bad Credit Impacts Your Life

Deal with Medical Bills Before You Ruin Your Credit

Large medical bills can have a negative impact on your credit score. They are usually the result of a serious injury or illness. Compounded by the fact that you have been dealing with other issues, you may have been out of work and have less money to pay those bills. So, how can you avoid having...
Deal with Medical Bills Before You Ruin Your Credit

3 Easy Ways to Damage Your Credit

If you are trying to repair your credit and improve your credit score, you are probably looking at ways that you can make that happen. However, it is just as important to know what you are doing wrong that may sabotage your good efforts.
Maxing Out Your Credit Even If You Pay It Off
If you have...
3 Easy Ways to Damage Your Credit

3 Budget Mistakes That Can Hurt Your Credit Score

You may wonder how your budget decisions can impact your credit score, especially since your bank information is not included in your credit report. The fact is that one decision often affects another one. In the case of your credit, if you make mistakes with your budget, the first place you are...
3 Budget Mistakes That Can Hurt Your Credit Score

What To Do If You Have Old Debt

If you remember a time when you were irresponsible or life circumstances prevented you from paying all of your bills, you may find that they will come back to haunt you someday. Any time an old debt shows up on your credit report, it can do serious damage to your credit score. Pretending old...
What To Do If You Have Old Debt

What Age is Right to Teach Kids About Having Good Credit?

Most parents lecture their teenagers about getting a job, saving money and how they spend the money they earn. But can you start even earlier teaching your kids about credit and the importance of having good credit?
The Importance of Early Learning
Many banks have programs where they teach kids...
What Age is Right to Teach Kids About Having Good Credit?

Recognizing Good Credit Advice from Bad

If you are trying to improve your credit score, you are probably doing a lot of research. You may be checking to see how to improve a bad credit score or what kind of information raises or lowers a credit score. However, not all information you receive will be good credit advice. You need to...
Recognizing Good Credit Advice from Bad

How to Maintain Good Credit Once You are Free From Debt

You’ve worked hard to rebuild your credit by paying off bills and eliminating credit card balances. As a result of your diligence, you have seen your credit score rise. But how do you maintain that good credit score and still stay out of debt?
Take Pride in Your Achievement
It’s okay...
How to Maintain Good Credit Once You are Free From Debt

Does Credit Repair Mean Not Having Any Fun?

If you have made it a goal to pay off your debts and improve your credit score, you may have set up a strict budget. The plan may be to use every spare penny to paying down credit card balances or paying off old collections. Yes, you are dedicated to the cause, but does it mean you can’t...
Does Credit Repair Mean Not Having Any Fun?

Can You Have Good Credit without Debt?

One of the misconceptions about having a good credit score is that you must be in debt to see your score improve. This is not the case at all. You do have to show that you have a history of paying your bills when credit is extended to you, but that is not the same thing as being in debt.
Credit...
Can You Have Good Credit without Debt?

3 Ways You Can Get a Free Credit Score

You know how important your credit score is and how it impacts your ability to get credit cards, car loans and even a mortgage. At the same time, it can be difficult to find out what your score is. The first step in improving your credit score is to know what it is currently. Here are three ways...
3 Ways You Can Get a Free Credit Score

Tips to Improve a Really Bad Credit Score

If your credit score is so low that you can’t ever imagine getting an approval for any type of credit, don’t give up. All hope is not lost. It can take some time and a lot of effort, but you can get your good credit back.
Create a Plan
The first step is to know what you have to work...
Tips to Improve a Really Bad Credit Score

How to Remove Negative Information from Your Credit Report

If you’ve been in the unfortunate situation where you let a bill slide and it ended up in collections, you know how much it can hurt your credit. The effort to repair your credit often seems to take much longer than for one mistake to damage. If only you could undo it…
Be Patient
Nothing l...
How to Remove Negative Information from Your Credit Report

What You Should Know About Reading Your Credit Report

You hear the advice often: get your credit report and read it for errors. Sounds easy enough, right? But then you order the report and either download it or wait for it to arrive in the mail. Once you have it on your screen or in your hands, you begin to read. But what are you looking for? And...
What You Should Know About Reading Your Credit Report

Starting with a Credit Score of Zero

It won’t actually be zero, but if you have never had credit in the past, it will be pretty low. There is no one standard number that credit agencies start you out at, but it is often lower than the average person with a credit history.
No Credit Worse than Bad Credit
You’ve probably...
Starting with a Credit Score of Zero

Why Insurance Companies Check Your Credit Score

You may have heard that insurance companies now check your credit history to determine the rates you will pay for a policy. This does not make sense to a lot of people, but it is a current practice. So, why does your credit score matter to insurance companies when you are paying ahead for your...
Why Insurance Companies Check Your Credit Score

How to Make a Dispute on Your Credit Report

If you have recently requested a copy of your credit report and discovered an error, you may wonder what to do. How do you dispute inaccurate information? While it isn’t difficult, you want to do it the right way.
Get the Details
Make sure you know exactly what is incorrect on your report....
How to Make a Dispute on Your Credit Report

Selecting the Right Credit Card to Help Your Credit Score

You’ve probably read many times that getting a credit card will help improve your credit score. In fact, if you don’t have credit or are trying to rebuild it, a credit card can make a big difference in your score after just a few months. But which
credit card is the right...
Selecting the Right Credit Card to Help Your Credit Score

Improve a Bad Credit Score with On-Time Payments

Without a doubt, the single most important factor to what kind of credit score you will have is if you pay your bills on time. One late payment can drop your score by as much as 100 points or more. In fact, the scores that are hurt the worst are often the highest scores.
While on-time payments...
Improve a Bad Credit Score with On-Time Payments

How Debt Settlement Affects Credit Scores

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the massive amount of debt you have, you may be looking for answers. Debt settlement could appear like the right way to go, but how will it affect your credit score? Remember that any decision you make can impact your score for a long time.
How Debt Settlement...
How Debt Settlement Affects Credit Scores