How to Restore My Credit Score
Restoring your credit score may seem like a daunting, mysterious or impossible task - but it's not. With some careful planning and hard work, you can recover from bad credit and get back on your feet.
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Things You'll Need
- A full report of your current credit score
- Strict adherence to your budget
Instructions
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First thing's first: you'll need to have a full report of your credit score on hand. It's a little known fact, but if you are a US citizen, you are entitled to receive a free, full credit score report every year. Ignore all the gimmicks and go straight to the official site, www.annualcreditreport.com. Get copies of your credit report from Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. Print these out and save a .pdf copy on your computer.
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Next, look over your report carefully for any errors in your score. Do you see any "missed payments" that you know you paid on time? These types of errors could be damaging your credit score severely. Notify the credit reporting agency about these errors immediately.
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Are you paying your bills on time? Make sure you are at LEAST paying the minimum payments each month. Most banks will allow you to set up an automatic bill pay for your credit card. Although it may not be immediately feasible, set up a budget with the goal of paying off your credit card debt entirely. Keeping a balance on your card month after month is another factor that lowers your score. Inversely, paying off that balance will help you restore your score. If your credit card debt is very large, check out "How to Use Multiple Credit Cards" in the Resources section of this article for ways to find 0% APR cards to transfer a balance to.
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Tips & Warnings
If you find that your credit card balance keeps creeping back up, work on ways to cut your monthly expenses
Restoring your credit won't happen overnight: it's a long-term goal and will require long-term dedication
