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- Create a plan to improve your credit score
Look at any problem areas and address those areas one at a time
- Pay your bills on time! All of them
Not paying bills on time or paying them late can hurt your credit score.
- Pay your bill early or twice a month
Pay down all or part of your bill before the statement period ends
- If you have missed payments, get current
Make those lost payments up
- Don’t hit your credit limit
Use no more than one-third of your credit limit if you don’t want to hurt your credit score
- Don’t apply for every credit card
Too many credit inquiries in a short period of time can hurt your credit score.
- Only spend what you can afford
Don’t use a credit card to live beyond your means, or to roll over the costs of everyday expenses to the next month.
- Have a credit history
The older your credit accounts are, the better your credit score will be. You want to have credit accounts that have been open for 10 years or more.
- Pull your credit report from each of the 3 credit bureaus
Spot any potential errors and dispute those errors.
- Limit the amount of credit inquiries on your credit file
Soft inquiries don’t impact score. Hard inquiries will lower score.