To raise your credit score 100 points requires on average an estimated 45 days, assuming that all the necessary parts fall into place.
First off, it goes without saying that people who need to fix their credit profile and boost their credit score need to start by stopping the actions that cause the problem in the first place.
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Whether those actions are under your control (e.g., adverse consequences of your detrimental financial behaviors), or beyond your control (e.g., a catastrophic occurrence that caught you blindsided), their effect on your credit must be nullified.
Once you have stopped the harmful trend, replacing it with factors that play to your advantage can begin. Read on to find out more.
The first thing to consider when you establish your goal of learning how to raise your credit score 100 points is your payment history.
All three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) rank payment history as the most important factor in credit scoring.
Thus, you must start by paying all your bills on time. Even one missed payment can have a damaging effect on your credit score.
The easiest fix for this is to automate your bill payments. Just don’t forget to adequately fund the bank account where the payments will originate and set up reminders to avoid overdrafts and cascading fees and penalties!
As you work to raise your credit score, after getting your bill payments on track, then be sure to start checking your credit
report regularly.
A service like Credit Karma (creditkarma.com) can be a big help. It is easy to join and free to use. It allows you to see your credit score updated daily. It also monitors all facets of your credit profile and recommends courses of action to improve your financial status.
In return, Credit karma will earn a commission if you get approved for their recommendations on such offers as loans, credit cards, and more.
You also have the option of getting a free credit report once a year on annualcreditreport.com. It shows the 3 major reporting agencies' reports. The main benefit of looking up your detailed credit report on each credit reporting agency is for the opportunity to spot errors on it.
Fixing errors on your credit report by reporting them in writing or on the credit reporting agency’s website enables your score to improve when detrimental errors are removed.
Note that a record of unpaid bills, whether charged off, paid off in collections, or left unpaid will stay on your credit record for seven years.
Paying off these derogatory accounts will positively impact your score, even if they won’t be deleted from your credit report. In time, they will automatically fall off your record. So, part of wiping your credit clean is also to realize that this is a process, and it can take time and patience.
That said, it is often the case that your recent payment record carries more weight than old derogatory marks if your handling of your finances has markedly improved.
Here are other key areas to watch:
The balance on revolving credit lines (line of credit, credit card accounts, etc.) is to be kept at no more than 10 percent of available credit to see a substantial jump in your credit score. Paying off your balance at the end of each billing cycle is ideal, but not necessarily a deal breaker in terms of credit scoring.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you keep your balance too close to the available credit limit, or go over the limit, your score will go down.
Next to paying down revolving credit debt, the other equally important factor in credit scoring is how high you keep your account balances overall.
It is more beneficial to prioritize reducing your debt balances over increasing available credit - even though the latter also increases credit scores. In scoring factors, lowering your debt load ranks higher than raising the percentage of available credit.
Some credit lines, such as personal loans, automatically end after you make the final payment. Others, like credit cards accounts, continue indefinitely.
If you pay off the balances on those accounts, make sure you do not close those accounts. Whether used or unused, the duration of those credit lines is taken into consideration to calculate an important credit scoring factor: The age of your credit history.
Until you have reached your credit score objective, keep all your old accounts open. Once your score is high enough, closing an unwanted account will have much less of a negative impact.
Every time you apply for new credit, the hard credit pull performed to check your credit history temporarily decreases your score. You must avoid applying for credit too frequently for two reasons: Your score will fall and this type of activity will result in your application being denied.
The caveat is if you submit multiple applications in the span of a few short days, and your applications are related to the same category, such as credit cards, auto loans, etc. Usually, your credit does not get dinged because this is interpreted as shopping around for credit.
A mix of installment loans, auto loans, credit cards and other fitting loan categories is a good indicator to lenders that you have the experience and the capability to successfully manage different types of loan obligations. So, this is desirable.
It doesn’t mean that you should take out loans
indiscriminately unless you absolutely need them. It only means that when you
do, you’ll make it a point to run your debt load carefully and judiciously, in a well balanced manner.
As a result of implementing the components we’ve outlined, you will raise your credit score 100 points in no time!
Lastly, the missing link here is oftentimes the funds needed for various payment imperatives discussed above.
On this site, we address that issue through various work online and side gig pointers that are showcased to help set you on your path to multiple streams of income.