Summer time has just begun and it’s a perfect time to get a jump start on improving your credit score! Enjoy the summer fun without the worry of any credit score concerns. This USA Today News article by Odysseas Papadimitriou, explains four tips for getting your credit score in shape for the summer.
1. Check your credit score. You’ll need a baseline against which to judge your performance, so check your credit score (for free). Two-thirds of people haven’t checked their credit score in the past year, according to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, which means this simple step alone puts you ahead of the game. You might even discover that your credit is already excellent and you’re perhaps currently overpaying on certain financial products. In such a case, you can get right to upgrading.
2. Review your credit report for errors. To say that credit reports are error-ridden would be an overstatement, but not by much, as roughly a quarter of people have a mistake on one of their files, according to the FTC. Finding a significant error and then successfully completing the dispute process is one of the easiest ways to get a quick credit score bump.
3. Pay down outstanding balances. Credit scores incorporate a metric called “credit utilization,” which is the ratio of your credit card balances to your credit limits. Lower is generally better with this ratio, so try to repay a chunk of a revolving balance, if applicable, or pay your bill a few days prior to your monthly statement being generated in order to reduce the balance reported to the credit bureaus.
4. Satisfy collection accounts. The newest credit-score models stop considering collections accounts once they have been paid. Either paying what you owe in full or negotiating a settlement with the collection company could therefore improve your score, and perhaps your odds of credit card approval.
Read the full article: 4 tips for getting your credit score in shape for the summer
