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Improving Poor Credit

In today's day and age your credit history and score affect you more than you might know. The ability to buy a home or a car, to get a loan or a credit card is greatly reduced by a low credit score. A poor credit rating can even affect the rate you pay for car insurance, or your ability to get the cell phone you want. The availability of credit is sometimes the only path out of dark times in our lives. So what can you do to improve your credit before that dark time comes?

 First, check your spending. Where does all your money go? You need to take a serious look at your finances to figure out why you currently have a poor credit rating. Is it because of irresponsibility, or because you truly can't afford the things you are buying?

Second, make regular payments on your existing credit account. Now that you've taken a closer look at your finances and know where your cash is going, cut out unnecessary spending and pay off your debts. If looking at your finances has only pointed out that you can't afford to pay off your debts, you may want to consider credit counseling or bankruptcy.

 Third, look for a fresh start. Once you have a clear picture of your finances obtain new credit in the form of a credit card or loan. Remember, the whole point of this is to improve your credit, so don't go crazy. If you get a loan make the regular monthly payments on time. If you get a credit card, spend lightly and pay off the balance in full at the end of each month.

 Remember, repairing your credit is a marathon, not a sprint.

Negative Credit Repair Help

There are many people in our country today with bad credit that don't even know it. In fact, most of these people won't even find out until they apply for credit and are denied.

Will you be next?

 Whether you know you have bad credit or not, there are steps you can take to make sure your credit is moving in the right direction.

Order a copy of your credit report. By law, you are allowed one free copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus per year. Make sure you that advantage of this. Either order all three at once to get a complete picture of your credit or stagger them throughout the year to keep an up to date picture.

Review your reports with a fine tooth comb. Make sure to take your time and pay attention to every detail. Check your personal information for misspelling and wrong numbers or addresses. Review your credit accounts for proper dates and amounts. Make sure you recognize all the accounts listed on your report. Identity theft is a growing problem, don't be a victim. And take a look at who else has been looking at your credit report.

 Dispute information that doesn't belong there. While going through your reports, make a detailed list of all the information that is wrong or items that should no longer be there. Keep a copy of this list for yourself and send a copy of it, along with your credit report, to the corresponding credit bureau. Then all you can do is wait. A credit bureau is required by law to investigate all disputes and reply within thirty days. If any changes are made, they should send you an updated copy of your credit report.

 File a dispute with the creditor. If you know the information is wrong and the credit bureau investigation did not change anything, file a dispute with the creditor that listed the item. The process should be similar to filing a dispute with the credit bureau.

Remember, it's your credit. It's up to you to fix it.

Debt Relief Plan

If debt free and worry free living are something that sound good to you, then you're in the right place. We're about to go over a plan that will help you eliminate your debt faster than you ever thought possible!

1. Get your spending under control. Stop buying anything with your credit cards unless it is something that is absolutely essential to live and you can pay off the balance in full at the end of the month. You need to stop accumulating bad debt.

2. On a sheet of paper or in an excel spreadsheet, list all of the people or creditors that you owe money too. Next to each name, list the current balance or total amount owed, the interest rate, and the minimum monthly payment.

3. Rank your debts by interest rate, starting with the highest rate first. Another way to do this would be to rank your debt by the lowest current balance first. Which way you choose will depend on your level of motivation. By paying off your higher interest debt first, you will be saving yourself some money in the long run. But if you're desperate to see something happening with your plan, you might want to pay off smaller balances first to keep you motivated.

4. This step might be rough, especially if you're already struggling to get by. But you need to find some extra money that you can apply to your debt reduction plan on a monthly basis. Obviously the more money you can come up with the better, but anything will help. As I mentioned, finding extra money is not always easy, but if you dig deep enough you can usually find some unnecessary expense that can be cut out, such as smoking, t.v., or paying for that coffee on the way to work. You can then use that money towards debt reduction.

5. Starting with the debt you decided to rank #1, make your minimum monthly payment plus the extra money you came up with. On everything else, make the minimum monthly payment only. Continue to do this every month until the first debt is paid off. On the following month apply the minimum monthly payment from debt #1, the minimum monthly payment from debt #2, and the extra money to debt #2. Continue to make the minimum payment on everything else. You will follow this pattern until your debt is completely eliminated.

Good luck!

American Consumer Debt- Just A Thought

Are you tired of being in debt yet? I don't need to hear your answer to know it's a resounding Yes! If debt has you concerned, you are definitely not alone. According to the Federal Reserve Board, U.S. consumer debt was at about $2.2 trillion in December of 2005.

Did you notice the number I just gave you? Most of you probably read $2.2 trillion and didn't even give it a second thought. I did the same thing the first time I read it. After all, what does a number like that mean to the average person working their butt off at a job for $35,000 or less a year? Not much. Well keep reading because I am about to paint a small picture for you. I want you to get at least a basic idea of how much debt Americans are in.

If I gave you a modest sum of money to spend on a daily basis, say $1 million, how long do you think it would take you to spend $2.2 trillion? Are you ready for this? It would take you approximately 6,027 years! So if I gave you and everyone else in your family $1 million a day to spend for the rest of your lives, you still couldn't spend it all.

 Let's look at this from another point of view. There are approximately 300 million people in America. That includes every man, woman, and child. If we gave every American an even share of that $2.2 trillion debt, we'd each owe $7,333. Not a pretty picture.

The good news is that there are many ways for you to eliminate your debt and worry. What are you going to do this year to make that a reality?