Tips improving credit score quickly in a month

Louis Ninh
YourSmartCredit.Com
4 min readApr 23, 2016

Improving credit score quickly

Improving credit score is a long term process and it could take years to fix your issue. But you have a plan for a new loan application next month for a new investment or car purchasing or even house renting approval from the landlords, you want a better score to make these things happen. There are some simple tips for you to get a 20–50 points boost instantly.

Keep payment on time immediately

As you should know complying the on-time payment weights 35% of your credit score validation at credit reporting companies, a missed payment in previous month costs you a 60–100 points drop immediately in next reporting period. So you must pay the credit payment this month on time which rewards you 10–20 points on your credit file. Otherwise, if the late payment keeps coming in the 2nd month or even later, possibly your credit score will lose precious 100 points or more.

When you well know in advance that your credit bill is high this month based on your purchase, do whatever you can to prepare the minimum payment, ideally full payment, and proceed it by the due date. If your missing payment caused by a bad memory, taking a obvious reminding note at home or on your smartphone will be helpful.

Related story: What determines your credit score

Plan paying your this month credit off

The 2nd important factor affects your credit score is high credit utilization. Credit utilization rate is how much of your credit limit you are using, the higher rate the higher risk and the lower credit score. In fact, credit score could drop up to 110 points if you don’t pay off your credit debt on the next payment due date. That hurts!

This fact also suggest us a hint that paying off the payment will be improving credit score quickly as well. According to VantageScore, you can get up to 50 points for your credit report if you decrease your credit card debt in a credit card by 30%.

The difficulty is money to clear the debt, we all face this biggest challenge. In case you have buy a big thing this month and can’t pay all due payment in the right time, the best advice is to divide this purchase for your all credit cards. Make the utilization rate on each card lower and the credit score drop can stop at 30–80 points instead of 110.

Upgrade your total credit for improving credit score

In the 2nd point, we decrease the credit utilization by lower credit debt, we also can achieve 50 points by a vitamin boost in credit limits. It means you extend your credit availability in current accounts.

When you should apply this advice? You get a high above 650 FICO credit score and the current debt is low. Now you call to the credit card companies and ask for a better credit limit.

In your call, don’t try to negotiate your request with the first person who answers the phone. The people who answer the phones generally don’t have the authority to approve changes, so you’d just be wasting your time. When you are connected to the supervisor, tell him or her that another company offers you a much better deal at the credit limit. It would be good if you can state a specific name based on your experience. Chances rise that the supervisor will agree to request. If you are not that fortunate, just call back and speak to someone else in another week.

Dispute your credit report

An error in your credit report can cost more than you would think because a negative information such as a wrong payment history, collection error, a closed account by lenders would take your next 7 years to clear this if you don’t notice these in the report. And as long as you fix this hole, you’ll see the big different in your credit score. This process isn’t complicated as you might think, just following some simple steps by mail you can achieve points you deserve.

Related story: Dispute credit reports efficiently in 4 steps

Utilize your family member’s good score

This tip requires you looking for a good score owner in your family, normally your parents, and asking for your authorized user on their credit accounts. When becoming an authorized user, you ask the credit card companies issuing a new credit card under your name linking to your parents’ credit account. You starts using this new credit card for your new small purchase and pay the debt off in the next payment on time. This is considered as a very great positive credit behavior and will reward you a good bump next month report. Keep in mind, you must check their credit report to make sure their files are really positive before approaching this method.

Above points are a very simple ways to help you improve credit score in a short term, but as the best advice, always keep an eye on our credit report, purchase items and practice a responsible credit acts, is the core of a heathy life with credit card and debt management. If you have any other tips of improving credit score, let share them with me by the comment box below!

Related:

Repairing credit score after bankruptcy

Originally published at yoursmartcredit.com on April 23, 2016.

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