For too many Americans, credit repair is something that they only think about when trying to purchase a car or apply for a loan and find that the interest rates available to them are sky-high.
But if you’re already being denied a rental apartment because your credit score is too low, it’s too late to make a change — or at least one that will get you into that new apartment right away.
Credit repair takes time. How much time varies from one person to the next, depending on your current score and the obstacles that you’re up against, like having a bankruptcy on your financial record or a mountain of debt that you need to pay down.
It also takes the right strategies and an understanding of what exactly goes into calculating your credit score.
Investing in credit repair services can streamline the process and give you access to the tools and help you need to succeed in improving your credit score.
But is it a necessity? Can you tackle credit repair on your own to improve your score? Keep reading to find out.
Do You Know How Your Credit Score is Calculated?
Whether by a few points or a few hundred, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t interested in increasing their credit score. But despite this, 4 out of every 10 Americans don’t know how their credit score is calculated. This means that they also don’t know exactly what it takes to change your score — for better or for worse.
Most of us have a general idea about some of the money moves that cause our scores to drop. Missing credit card payments, defaulting on a loan, or filing for bankruptcy are widely known to cause a hit to your score. But other financial moves and mistakes that can cause your score to drop are less well known.
For instance, most people don’t think twice about using any credit that they have available — after all, they were approved for it. In reality, your credit utilization rate has a direct impact on your credit score. Many people don’t realize that utilizing more than 30 percent of their available credit can actually cause their scores to drop. And even fewer people have a good understanding of how much of a drop they might experience.
Are You Ready to Get Your Budget in Order?
One of the first steps in credit repair is getting your finances in order. Perhaps the best way to do this is by setting a budget.
But in order for a budget to work, two things need to happen. First, your budget needs to be carefully compiled. If your budget guesses at your current spending, you might find yourself routinely breaking your budget on things that you can’t cut back on, like the cost of your utilities or basic groceries. Second, you need to stick to your budget in order for it to work.
Most of us understand the benefits of setting and following a budget. But fewer actually practice budgeting. In fact, just over 40 percent of American households report following a budget.
Anyone can set a budget for themselves. But if you’ve previously struggled with overspending and debt, budgeting might be a habit that you struggle to adopt.
Getting help with your budget from professional credit repair services is a great way to jumpstart your savings and fast-track other financial goals, like lowering your credit utilization rate or avoiding taking on new loans with high-interest rates to pay for expenses.
With Credit Innovation’s Cashflow Accelerator, we’ll help you organize your personal budget to reveal savings you can start using to build an emergency fund or pay down your debts.
Whether you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck or struggling with bad habits like overspending on items you don’t need, our Cashflow Accelerator can help you take control of your finances.
Do You Know How to Spot and Correct Mistakes in Your Credit Report?
Sometimes, hits on your credit score aren’t your fault. Missing a credit card payment or overspending on your credit cards and driving your credit utilization rate up do hurt your score. Butredit repair mistakes on your credit report can do the same.
Mistakes come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are clerical errors in your personal information, like your address or even a misspelling in your name. Other times, mistakes are more serious, like an unrecognized debt being reported to the credit bureau.
The most common type of mistake on your credit report is an unrecognized account. In fact, this accounts for more than 40 percent of all credit report mistakes.
It doesn’t matter that a debt or financial account isn’t yours; if it winds up on your credit report, your score will suffer. Spotting and correcting mistakes is a must but can be tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing.
The best credit repair Utah has to offer can help you to spot mistakes as soon as they occur, and correct them to reduce the impact on your score. Our Credit Ninja service tracks and identifies errors in your credit report. When one is found, we’ll help you to file a dispute to fix the error and repair the impact on your credit score, if necessary. Don’t let mistakes that you didn’t make impact your credit score. Don’t want to spend time learning how to track and correct mistakes? It’s best to leave this task to the pros.
Investing in Credit Repair Services
Adopting credit repair strategies is something that anyone can do. But trying to improve your credit score on your own can be a challenge. This is especially true if you aren’t familiar with the factors that go into determining your score or if you’ve struggled with bad financial habits in the past.
If you want to jumpstart your credit repair and start raising your score faster, investing in professional credit repair services can help.
Ready to learn more about improving your credit score, and how we can help? Schedule your free consultation today!
