In the last post, I mentioned how crucial it was to learn how to do credit repair yourself. I shared the first 3 of 5 quick and easy steps to do credit repair yourself.

Without further ado, here are the last two tips.

1. Raise your credit limits – you may be asking yourself, “How can raising your credit limits help when you are doing credit repair yourself?” The magic about this is that 30 percent of your credit score is directly impacted by the balance on your account compared to the limit on that account. So there is only two ways to change this aspect of your credit score. Either you pay down the balance or you raise up the credit limit. Either can give you an equal result when doing credit repair yourself.

2.  Continue monitoring your credit score – here’s where most people miss it big time. They take the initial actions to repair their credit themselves, but then they never follow up to be certain that those actions really helped their credit scores. That’s the pitfall of doing credit repair yourself; you may not have a good system for following through until you get the results in your credit that you are looking for. The best tool to use here is a calendar and simply putting reminders every one to two months to check your credit report and credit scores again.

So now you have it, the 5 quick and easy steps to do credit repair yourself.  Like I told you before, it’s quite easy if you know how to do it.  These 5 steps will definitely get you started on the right foot.

Don’t forget to leave your comments and let me know if this was helpful.

a

In this tough economy, when every dollar counts, it is crucial to learn how to do credit repair yourself. Each and every day, thousands of desperate people are needlessly running to credit repair agencies spending hundreds, even thousands of dollars trying to get their credit up to par.

But it really isn’t that difficult at all to repair credit yourself if you know the basic things that most credit repair services would otherwise do for you for a fee.

If you aren’t aware of those simple actions, here are the first 3 of 5 quick and easy steps to do credit repair yourself.

1. Access a copy of your credit report – you are entitled to a copy of your credit report for free once a year. You can access it in the mail, by phone, or even online. Although you get this free credit report, be sure to also get your credit scores along with your report, as this is the foundation for doing credit repair for yourself.
2. Check your credit report for errors – this is one of the biggest factors that credit repair agencies bank on – the mistakes that can you easy remove yourself while you’re in the process of credit repair. Look for wrong addresses, wrong social security numbers, accounts with balances that you’ve already paid off, and even accounts with late payments that were actually made on time.
3. Negotiate account payoffs – here’s another area that you are typically charged for by credit repair agencies which you can avoid by doing the credit repair yourself. All you have to do is call your creditors on collection or past due accounts and ask them to settle with you. Just let them know that you will pay off the balance, but that you are only able to pay a certain amount. If the creditor agrees, you have just saved a few hundred dollars and you now have a zero balance on that account.

The best thing to do is to start today with these first 3 steps to doing credit repair yourself. Once you complete these, which shouldn’t take long at all, then you’ll

a

As you may know, people want to fix their credit right now.  Many people are losing their jobs or going through a foreclosure.  Gas prices have made money a little tighter and many people are falling behind on their bills.  This can be devastating when it comes to their credit report and credit score. 

However, I want you to know there is still a way to fix your credit even under those situations.  The problem is that people often lose hope and are paralyzed when it comes to paying their bills on time once they get the news of a foreclosure or other big events like that.  That leads me into the one thing that you want to avoid when you fix your credit.

First, let’s start off by talking about the behavior that occurs when you start paying late (for most people at least). 

Say I get into a situation where I can no longer afford my mortgage payment and all of a sudden my house goes into foreclosure.  This may cause tons of stress and anxiety for me so I figure that I’ll just give up on all my bills and obligations. 

I stop paying everything at this point; my mortgage, credit cards, car loan, and even my utility bills because my house is about to be taken from me.  Guess what happens next?

My credit score plummets to the depths of the sea!!!  I have late payments on everything now.  This is the major mistake that people are making in this desperate time. 

Now, here’s the BETTER WAY to handle this situation and one you can learn from to help yourself and your loved ones not to completely destroy their credit.

Again, let’s say that I am losing my home.  I call the bank to see if there is anything we can work out rather than just dodge their calls.  They may or may not be able to help, but at least I tried.  So let’s say that there’s no other option than losing my home.  Sad, but OK in the long run.

Now, here’s where the magic takes place.  

Although the mortgage company is taking my house, I decide to keep paying my credit cards on time, my car loan on time and everything else on time since there’s no hope in keeping up with my mortgage payment.  KEY – PAY EVERYTHING ELSE ON TIME!!

The reason that you want to do this is because you will still have available credit in good standings to help fix your credit after the foreclosure.  Even though you have late payments on the mortgage and a foreclosure, you still have the credit cards and car loan (or any other credit you may have) that you have been paying on time and is still in good standing.  Over time, the good history on these other accounts will help you slowly boost your credit score higher and higher and help fix your credit.

Compare this to someone who loses hope completely and stops paying everything.  They have late payments on every account, a foreclosure on their home, collection accounts from the other credit they stopped paying, and all the credit cards have been closed by the creditors for lack of payment.  What do they have left to build on?  Absolutely nothing!

While you just continue paying your open accounts on time and showing the credit agencies that you can still handle credit in a timely manner, the other person is desperate to fix their credit but has no open accounts in good standings to build off of. 

They must try hard to open new accounts to re-establish themselves and fix their credit.  This may take several months or even years to accomplish.  You on the other hand don’t have to worry about that because you paid everything else on time, other than the mortgage, and you continue to have open credit in good standings.

So, the one thing that you want to avoid when you fix your credit after an event such as a foreclosure is to stop paying on all your other accounts.  As long as you continue paying everything else on time, you have a 99% better chance to fix your credit much easier and faster than all the others that decided to give up on all their expenses.

I hope this has been helpful and has opened your eyes to see that your credit is not doomed forever if you go through a bad financial time.  Do it intelligently and with some tact, and you will be back on your feet much sooner than most others.

If you are interested in learning more of these tips and tactics to fix your credit or boost your credit score, click Fix Your Credit to get this valuable information emailed to you.

a

Credit repair is something that you hear about all the time.  First of all, there are credit repair companies.  Then there are credit repair kits.  There are many things out on the market that supposedly make the process of credit repair fast and easy.

In my time working with clients over time, there are have been many excuses why they haven’t taken any steps to repair their credit, however, there are 5 key things that have been consistent over the last 7 years.

1. Lack Of Knowledge – Because we’ve been served so many different ways to achieve good credit, it is obvious that people seem more overwhelmed because of not having the right knowledge about credit or how to improve it.  The first step is understanding how credit really works.  There are 5 key factors which determine your credit score, but sadly, even some professionals don’t really know this precise formula.
2. Different Opinions and Perspectives- Many people that I’ve spoken to have different perspectives on how and what to do to have excellent credit.  This is mainly because the people that we go to learn about credit don’t really know themselves.  So, if we get false information about credit, guess what?  We will pass on the same inaccurate information to others.  Every time, the right info gets diluted and becomes completely false.
3. Not Establishing A Plan To Improve Your Credit- You’ve probably heard the saying “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”  Well, that also applies to increasing your credit score and working on your credit repair.  There are a number of steps that it takes to boost your credit score, but often, people just shoot from the hip, or take a blind shot into the wind, without properly planning the steps necessary to increase your score.  It is very important to establish a plan because then you know that you are making progress, and you will also provide yourself with accountability to stick to the goal!
4. Can Be Overwhelming- At first, credit repair may look overwhelming.  After all, the task of going from a 537 score to a 700 seems like a huge undertaking.  The simplest way to achieve this and not feel suffocated is to break down your plan into smaller, manageable tasks.  Instead of paying down 5 credit cards so that they reach a 30% balance compared to the credit limit, focus on paying down the smallest one.  Once you do that, move on to the next one, and so forth.  This can give you motivation to continue and also make you feel like you are moving closer to the goal.
5. Lack Of Money or Time To Improve Credit- Let’s face it.  In order to repair your credit, you will either need time or money, or even both.  The more money you have available to do it, the less of your time it would take, and vice versa.  Again, making small adjustments can get you well on your way to credit repair.  First, is there anything that you can cut off from your spending that you can redirect to your debt?  Also, do you have an hour or two that you can schedule with yourself to review your credit and send out any letters to the creditors?  These are small things that you can begin doing to make a difference in your credit score.

As you can see, if you know what some of the road blocks are from improving your credit, then you can plan accordingly and make adjustments when necessary.

What are some of the things that are hindering you from improving your credit?  Feel free to leave comments or questions here and I will be sure to answer them.

a