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7 Ways To Protect And Improve Your Credit Rating
Your credit score accounts for the amount of interest you have to pay for a loan or a credit card. Increasing your score in just a few points will make a big difference in the interest rate you will pay for a purchase. If your credit score is high enough, youll have no problem qualifying for a lenders best rates and terms on auto financing, home loans and small business loans. The following are a few tips about how you can protect and improve your credit rating.
1 – Order Your Credit Report. Your credit score is based on your credit report, so you should begin by ordering your reports and reviewing each one for accuracy. You can get your reports from a service such as MyFico.com, or order from Equifax, Experian and Trans Union separately online or by phone.
2 – Check Your Credit Report Information for Inaccuracies. Check the identifying information for name, social security number, birth date and incorrect address. Make certain that old negatives and paid-off debts are deleted. Check for accounts and delinquencies that are not yours, late payments, charge offs, lawsuits, judgments or paid tax liens older than seven years old. Also, paid liens or judgments that are listed as unpaid, duplicate collections, bankruptcies that are older than ten years and any negative information that is not yours.
3 – Always Pay Your Bills on Time. Payment history makes up more than a third of the typical credit score. If you paid bills late in the past, you can improve your credit score by starting to pay your bills on time. Lenders are looking for any sign that you might default, and a late payment is a good indicator that you are in financial difficulty.
4 – Keep Credit Cards Balances Low. Carrying smaller balances is the best way to increase your credit score. The score measures how much of your limit you use on each credit card or other line of credit, and how much of your combined credit limits you are using on all your cards. Within 60 days, paying down credit card balances can increase your credit score by as much as 20 points.
5 – Try Not to Open In-Store Credit Cards. Although your first credit accounts can serve to build and improve your credit history, there comes a point when each subsequent credit application can reduce your score. New credit cards reduce the age of your credit history, and a department store credit card isnt good evidence of credit worthiness. Every time you apply for a retailers credit card your credit store gets dinged.
6 – Be Conservative When Applying For Credit. Having at least one credit card thats more than 2 years old can help your score by 15 percent. Make sure that your credit report is checked only when necessary. Or, if you are shopping for a home, try to apply for loans within a two-week period. By keeping the loan process within a two-week period, all of the credit report lookups are seen as one single request.
7 – Dont Close Credit Cards or Other Revolving Accounts. Shutting down unused accounts that have outstanding balances without paying off the debt changes your utilization ratio, which is the amount of your total debt divided by your total available credit. It will reduce the gap between the credit you are using and the total credit available to you, and that can hurt your credit score.
Having an Insured Vehicle Means an Insured Life
Everyone agrees that riding public utility vehicles such as buses and whatnots to school or to work is much more hassle than just hopping on your own vehicle.
Acquiring your own vehicle, however, entails much more than just signing the papers and handing out the payment to the dealer. More than just having the rights to the vehicle, you are also handed the responsibility of getting auto insurance.
Now, a lot of people may be asking, “Why the need for auto insurance?”
First, you need to insure your vehicle not so much for any other reason but simply because it is the law. Almost every state in the nation requires all vehicles and drivers to be insured. This is one of the government’s ways to regulate damages should road accidents happen. One thing to note is that there are various types of insurance for all kinds of vehicles. In other words, there exist various kinds of insurance corresponding to what vehicle you own – such as motor insurance for motorcycles, truck insurance for trucks, and so on.
Second, getting insurance highly lessens the financial burden of medical expenses should you meet a road accident of any kind. Realistically speaking, if you do get involved in a vehicular accident, you would most probably be in shock emotionally and would not be fit to deal with added pressures on medical bills.
Having automobile insurance would reduce burden for yourself and your family, ensuring you that the financial costs would be covered by your insurance. This is very vital especially if you meet an accident with someone else in your vehicle. In a worst case scenario, this happening would put an added responsibility on you. You would inevitably have to pay for the person’s medical bills as well, aside from yours.
Third, auto insurance would cushion you financially for any repairs on your vehicle. In most cases, it could also cover the repairs for damages done on another vehicle in cases of crashes.
Getting the right kind of insurance for your vehicle is highly important. As we have seen, it would greatly reduce trouble for you with the law and with others as well. You might see it as something unnecessary and additional trouble, but this kind of trouble would only be temporary and definitely beneficial in the long run.