Master Your Card

Having bad credit can make you feel pretty helpless sometimes. Everyone knows there is no one quick way to repair credit, and for many folks the idea of the effort involved in fixing their credit is enough to stop them from even trying in the first place.

You don’t have to do anything drastic to start the process of improving your credit score, however. Yes, if your score is low and your credit history is blemished then it’s not going to be a walk in the park to get a good credit score, but it isn’t going to be torture either.

First things first, don’t hire someone else to repair your credit. Credit repair agencies aren’t doing anything you can’t do on your own for free, and in some cases they might wind up actually harming your credit score in the long run. You got yourself into this mess, so it’s only appropriate that you should be the one to get yourself out!

Order a free copy of your credit report. You may think that you have a pretty good idea of what’s listed on your report, but you might be surprised to see some of the items that are actually on there. It’s not unheard of to actually forget about a debt – such as a medical bill from three years back that you never paid – and taking a look at your credit report will rudely remind you that these accounts need to get paid. Don’t use freecreditreport.com – use annualcreditreport.com instead. The former is owned by one of the credit reporting agencies and, despite the ‘free’ bit in the title, it may very well end up costing you in the long run.

Study your credit report carefully. Does anything look amiss? Mistakes do happen, and getting errors removed from your credit report will save you a lot of hassle.

Do you have any money that you can use to get your accounts brought up to date? For example, if you have a department store credit card that is a month overdue, but you have the $50 you need in order to bring it up to date, then make the payment today.

“That’s silly,” you think to yourself. “Why would anyone have money lying around but have late bills?”

Sometimes people just forget to make payments, while other times it’s simply a matter of poor financial planning. You have $50 to go out with your friends, but that same $50 will bring your credit card back up to current status. Which one do you choose? Sure, you may have fun with your friends, but taking an account from delinquent status to current status is definitely going to help your credit score.

If you have a bunch of accounts that are late, but you don’t have the money right now to pay them off, you may want to contact the lenders and try to work out a different payment plan or even a settlement. You may not have the $300 you need in order to bring your credit card account up to date, but if you offer $150 and work out a payment plan with the company then they may change the status on your credit report.

So you have already looked at your credit report and brought a couple of accounts up to date (or worked out a payment plan), and your credit report is already looking better. The next task at hand is to work out a plan of attack for bringing everything else to current status. Compose a budget with an emphasis on getting all your accounts current, and then eventually paying down the balances so you have a good deal of available credit.

These few tasks will help your credit report start to look a little less terrifying, and these are all things you can do in the matter of a couple of hours. Of course, if you start with a really low credit score then it will take much more than a couple of phone calls and payments to get a decent score, but no matter how dire things might seem at the moment, with enough work and discipline there’s absolutely NO REASON why you can’t flip your score on its head.

The biggest hurdle is actually beginning the process. Once you jump that first hurdle, it only gets easier.