Whether you’re just getting out of college, or reaching retirement age, a good credit score is an important part of having a successful life. After all, you need a good credit score to be able to do everything from rent a home, to take out a mortgage, and even to get a cell phone contract.
The better your score is, the more favorable rates you’ll get, and the more financial doors that will open for you. If you’re looking for ways to improve your credit score, then here are some of the most straightforward methods to try now.
Keep Your Ulitization Rate Low
It’s important that you don’t use too much of your total credit allowance. Experts recommend staying under 30% of your total credit limit at all times. If you can, going even lower is ideal.
The more you can pay off each month, the better. Even though it might be tempting to only pay the minimum balance each month, you should aggressively pay as much as you can to keep your credit utilization percentage where it should be.
Check Your Score Regularly
Nowadays, technology has made it as easy as ever to keep an eye on your credit score. Free apps like Credit Karma allow you to glimpse at where you stand, and see if there are any issues coming up that you need to address. Yet, checking your score too often can stress you out if you have a considerable amount of debt. So, financial experts recommend checking at least once a month to ensure that you or on top of anything important.
Stop Applying For New Cards
If you’re trying to improve your credit score, you might think that getting more cards is the best way to do that. However, the more credit that you apply for, the more hard checks will show up on your credit report.
So, while it is a good thing to increase your overall credit limit, you should limit the amount of credit card applications you fill out per year. Applying for too much too quickly will have a negative impact on your score.
Set Up Auto Pay
One of the most common reasons why people get a hit on their credit scores is for late payments. The best way to avoid this is to set-up auto payments so you don’t even have to remember to pay your cards.
Simply set the amount that you want to pay each month, and let autopay handle it for you. Just make sure that you know exactly the amount that’s going to come out of your bank account and have enough money in the account so that you don’t risk overdraft fees.
