Do Creditors Look Past Your Credit Score?

[Y]ou hear all about the minimum credit score needed to get a credit card or loan. It seems like this one magic number seals your fate. You wonder if creditors or lenders even look at the information in your credit report or if they just use that number to get a decision for your...
Do Creditors Look Past Your Credit Score?

Can You Cheat Your Credit Score and Should You?

[I]f you’ve been plagued by a low credit score because of late payments, charge-offs and collections, you may think you’ll never be able to get a good credit rating. You may know that it can take 7 to 10 years for this negative information to come off your credit report, but you need it to come o...
Can You Cheat Your Credit Score and Should You?

3 Ways a Budget Protects Your Credit Score

[Y]ou know creating a budget and following it can help you save money. But do you know it can also protect your credit score? A budget does three things for your credit.
1. A budget helps you save money for emergencies.
When you plan to save money for emergencies, you avoid running up your...
3 Ways a Budget Protects Your Credit Score

First Steps to a Budget

[N]o matter how much you want to build or improve your credit, you won’t accomplish this goal unless you have a budget to follow. You’ll need to decide how much money you have to pay down debt or pay off old accounts. To build credit, you need to have a credit account you pay on regularly. Bef...
First Steps to a Budget

Easy Habits That Can Change Your Credit Score

[T]he way you use your credit can have a major impact on your lifestyle, for better, or for worse. Achieving an excellent credit score may seem like an impossible goal. However, even a few small changes can really make a difference. The following habits can transform your credit and your life. ...
Easy Habits That Can Change Your Credit Score

What It Means to Have a Good Credit Score

If you are trying to get a home or auto loan, you know how important a good credit score is. It can mean the difference of getting a good interest rate or even getting approved at all. But what else does it mean to have a good credit score?
Better Job Opportunities
While employers cannot check...
What It Means to Have a Good Credit Score

Good Habits That Will Help Your Credit Score

When you are trying to improve a bad credit score, it seems that most suggestions will take months or longer to work. There is no such thing as a quick fix when you have a low credit score. However, when you establish good habits, you will enjoy good credit for the long term.
Pay All Bills on...
Good Habits That Will Help Your Credit Score

Quick Ways to Improve Your Credit Score

Improving a bad credit score often takes time. It can take years to completely rebuild a credit score that dropped from excellent to poor. However, a few actions can help you see improvement right away.
Ask for More Credit
If you have balances on your credit cards that you are working to pay...
Quick Ways to Improve Your Credit Score

Should You Get a Higher Credit Card Limit?

After a length of time paying your credit card payments on time, you may assume that you will qualify for a higher credit limit. In fact, you may even wonder if you should ask. The question you may have is if you should get a higher limit and when you should ask.
Bigger is Not Always Better
A...
Should You Get a Higher Credit Card Limit?

How Your Credit Limit is Determined and How It Impacts Your Credit

You pay on a credit card faithfully and then you receive a notice in the mail that your credit limit increased. Another card that has a low balance doesn’t ever see an increase. It seems to make no sense and you’re not even sure if raising your limit is good or bad for your credit....
How Your Credit Limit is Determined and How It Impacts Your Credit

Fun Ways to Celebrate Your Improved Credit Score

If you have been living frugally and working extra hard to pay down debt to improve your credit score, you may be living to see the proof of your hard work. Once you reach the goal that you set for yourself or a milestone along the way, you may want to celebrate. Avoid doing something that costs...
Fun Ways to Celebrate Your Improved Credit Score

Why Are There So Many FICO Scores and Does It Matter?

You may hear a lot about a FICO score and how important it is to have a good one. The FICO score is a model that was developed by the Fair Isaac Corporation to determine how much of a credit risk each person is.
What you may not understand is that there are numerous FICO scores. In fact, it is...
Why Are There So Many FICO Scores and Does It Matter?

Choosing the Right Credit Monitoring Service

You can find numerous credit monitoring sites online. Many of them are free, while others may have a monthly fee attached to membership. Even the free sites often feature paid memberships that give more features and benefits.
How do you know which site is best for you? Should you select more...
Choosing the Right Credit Monitoring Service

How Your Smartphone Can Help You Improve Your Credit Score

Smartphones do much more than allow you to talk and text friends and family. They make it easier to check your email, surf the web, play games and even read or watch movies. What you may not think of using a smartphone for is to improve your credit.
If you wonder how it is even possible, just...
How Your Smartphone Can Help You Improve Your Credit Score

Should You Choose Cash Over Credit If You Have a Bad Credit Score?

For many people, the idea of paying cash for something seems archaic. They whip out their credit cards and never worry about having cash on hand. But for the person who has had issues with credit in the past, using credit may not be the best option even if he or she now has a credit card.
Too...
Should You Choose Cash Over Credit If You Have a Bad Credit Score?

Changes in Credit Reports Benefit Customers

Expect to see some changes to your credit report in the upcoming months. The three major credit bureaus met with the New York Attorney General to change the reporting process. An agreement was reached that will mean changes to how information is disputed.
What It Means to Customers
The biggest...
Changes in Credit Reports Benefit Customers

Protecting Your Credit Score When You are Married to a Spendthrift

People fall in love and get married. They talk about how many kids they want to have, where they will live and their dreams for the future. What they don’t always talk about is credit scores.
Sure, you may see that someone spends more money than you do, a little “too much”...
Protecting Your Credit Score When You are Married to a Spendthrift

How Everyday Habits Impact Your Credit

Unless you are trying to buy a new house or car or get a credit card, you may not think much about your credit. Then, you are focused on trying to make improvement quickly. What you may not realize is that your everyday habits have the biggest impact on your credit score. You can make a...
How Everyday Habits Impact Your Credit

Does the Job You Have Change Your Credit Score?

You hear about so many different factors that impact your credit score. All of that information can get confusing. One area that many people are concerned about is with their jobs. Can the job you have hurt – or help, your credit score?
Income and Credit
The answer is no, at least not directly. T...
Does the Job You Have Change Your Credit Score?

4 Things to Do to Improve Your Credit Score

Now that the holidays are behind you, it is time to take stock of the damage done to your credit score. No matter what it was before the holiday shopping, it probably took a hit. According to a survey conducted by the credit agency TransUnion prior to the holiday season, 82% of Americans would...
4 Things to Do to Improve Your Credit Score