Credit Guide - Credit Score & Finance Tips

Keeping Your Finances Under Control When Buying Your First House

When you first buy a house, there are many things to start thinking about. You need to make sure that you have enough money to put down a deposit, but you also need to ensure that you have funds for the redecorating of the property and furniture, if necessary. Here are some simple ways that you can ensure your finances are kept under control at all times.

Keep a good credit rating

Without a decent credit score, you’ll struggle to stay in control of your finances. You won’t be able to take out the best credit cards, and you might not even get a mortgage in the first place if your credit is bad. However, once you get a property, you might find that the expenses of maintenance and household bills take over your life and make it difficult on your bank account. Remember to pay all your debts and payments on time, don’t take out any unnecessary loans and check regularly to make sure that no mistakes have been made which might have a negative effect on your credit.

Make use of short term loans

Even those who work in a full-time position and budget properly can fall on hard times, so it’s a good idea to use short term loans to your advantage. When in need, you can apply at Short Term Loans 60 for a short term loan which will suit you. As long as you’re 18 or over and have a job and a bank account, you’ll be eligible to borrow some quick cash to help you over the coming days. These loans have helped out many people who came into financial difficulty, and you can choose how much you need to borrow – whether it’s a few pounds or a few hundred pounds. If you need to quickly buy some new furniture or decorate your new home, you can make use of a small short term loan.

Have a budget

You will have a budget for the price of the house you’re buying, but you also need to have a budget for the furniture and other items which you might need to purchase. This should include paying labourers to decorate the home, new fixtures or fittings which might be needed and any necessary gardening work. In order to keep the costs down, do as much work as possible yourself and hire tradesmen for the work that you can’t do.

An In-Depth Look at Credit

Believe it or not, your credit score says a lot about you. It confirms your financial stability and your ability to keep your word. Most importantly, it signifies if you’re economically responsible and able to be trusted for future financial endeavours. It is a good idea to get your free credit report and see what information they have on you.

The inability to pay loans and bills in a timely manner usually causes damage to your credit score. Regardless of the reasons behind your low score, most sources that are beneficial to your welfare and mobility find ratings that are substantially low unacceptable. Poor credit scores ultimately make or break your chances of qualifying for loans, car purchases, or property investments. They also increase your interest rates on credit cards, and may even hinder your chances of securing employment.

10 Ways to Improve Your Credit Rating

The most trustworthy people are sometimes unable to avoid financial hardships that hurt their good standing with credit bureaus, especially during global economic downturns. Fortunately, there are ways to repair credit scores. Take a look at some steps that may be useful to better your chances at financial security.

1. Report Discrepancies

Credit bureaus aren’t above making mistakes. You should monitor your credit report regularly to check for errors that drop your score lower than it actually should be. The kind of miscalculations that you should look for include, but aren’t limited to, old lawsuits that have already been judged, obsolete bankruptcies, spousal debts, duplicate listings, unauthorized hard inquiries, old demerits, and wrongful tax liens.

After you check your free reports at Annual Credit Report.com, you can dispute inaccurate entries on your report by filling out a special form on the website.

2. Limit Credit Applications

It’s important to only apply for credit when you absolutely need it. You should examine the fine print (i.e., interest rates and fees) of new credit endeavors before agreeing to the terms to avoid being overcharged and committing to something that you’ll regret later. Shopping for the best rates and loans is undoubtedly essential to restoring and maintaining a healthy score.

3. Make Payment Arrangements with Your Creditors

Despite common beliefs, creditors aren’t completely unremitting; they’re concerned with getting the money you owe them in a timely fashion so that they can stay in business. You should try to negotiate with your creditors to avoid having late payment history added to your credit report. More than likely, they’ll be willing to work with you after you’ve voiced your circumstances and your willingness to cooperate.

4. Stay Away from Excess Inquiries

An inquiry is the act of someone checking your credit history. Each time a new source, such as a retail stores or banking institution, makes an inquiry, it lowers your credit score. Hard inquiries are performed by businesses to see if you qualify for their product or service, whereas soft inquiries are made for other purposes, such as employment matters. Credit checks, particularly soft inquiries, can remain on your credit report for up to two years. Multiple inquiries within a short time frame can drastically worsen your score unless they’re made while you’re looking for a car or house, as several inquiries on your report for one of these purposes will only count as a single inquiry. However, the multitude of similar credit checks must be within a 30- to 45-day period.

5. Keep Inactive Accounts Open

Whether you’re active with a creditor or not, bureaus will keep your credit history in good standing the longer your account remains unclosed. If you have credit cards that you no longer use, it’s best to hide them or cut them up and dispose of them rather than close the old accounts. Keep in mind that you want to avoid having more than a handful of unused accounts open at one time.

6. Get Rid of Your Ex-Spouse’s Accounts

Divorce can cause a rift between two people in several ways, particularly a financial disaster if the couple decides to combine their accounts for record-keeping purposes. After separating from your partner and the divorce is final, it’s important to remove the other person’s name and information from your existing accounts and pay off joint accounts that you intend to close. Still, remember that getting a legal divorce doesn’t make you or your ex-spouse exempt from paying your debts, and you should discuss who will be responsible for successfully fulfilling each financial obligation. (more…)

Quick Mistakes to Avoid in Credit Repair

If you’re looking for things to avoid in credit repair, you’ve come to the right place. There are countless mistakes that you can make in the world of credit repair, and these mistakes add up to some serious consequences. Not getting details ironed out in the right way can make it even harder to get out of debt. In some cases, getting the details wrong can even invite a lawsuit. That’s why it’s so important to really make sure that you’re focusing on the bigger picture as much as possible. That’s the real way to get to the goal of being out of debt.

One of the top mistakes that you will want to avoid is trusting a collection agency. Remember that their job is to get money out of you no matter what they have to say. If they have to threaten you with legal action, they will certainly do that. If they have to call at all hours of the day and night, they will certainly do that. They have the technology to call you over and over — it’s really no stress on their side.

What you need to do is make sure that you get a limited cease and deist letter printed and sent to them. Make sure that you are always using a traceable method of delivery. We recommend Certified Mail because you can request for a return receipt. That’s the best way to get these problems solved.

Now, you might assume that you don’t need to do everything in writing — they can’t really be that intent on screwing you over, right? Wrong! Collection agencies couldn’t care less about what’s going on in your life, or anything of the sort. They care about money, and they want to make sure that you are giving them the full amount that they ask for.

Another mistake that you want to avoid is thinking that you don’t have any way to negotiate anything. On the contrary — you actually have more power than you can imagine. All they can do is attach negative information to your report and keep sending you letters. They can threaten all they want — the damage is already done. Your collection information on your credit report will fall off after 7 years from the date the collection accounts were originally created. (more…)

The Real Reason Why You Have Negative Information on Your Credit Report

Negative information on your credit report can be a real downer. There you are, trying to improve your credit and actually move on with all of your financial goals and then you get told that you really get do any of that. That’s a low blow, but it really doesn’t have to be that way at all.

It’s time to realize the underlying reasons why things are showing up on your credit report. First and foremost, the top reason why negative information is on your credit report at all is because it’s a way to get your attention. When you think about it, it makes sense.

If you know that you’re not going to pay your debts and you don’t really care about your credit, then it really doesn’t matter. However, since most people dream about getting things with good credit, the concept makes more sense. You’re going to check your credit, see the negative information, and want to change it. Most people feel that paying their debts is also the moral thing to do, so they make sure that they work out plans to do it.

The mistake that many make is trying to do everything in the phone. This is a mistake because there’s no way to really prove what was said. The collection agency isn’t going to let you record them. So if you’re going to work with a collection agency, you have to make sure that do it in writing. You never know whether or not you’re going to have to take this collection agency to court. This means that you really need to make sure that you focus on trying to get as much of a paper trail as you can. (more…)

What Can Millionaires Teach You About Bad Credit

Do you want to be a millionaire? Chances are good that you wouldn’t mind having a life of a millionaire. However, there’s a lot more to being a millionaire than you might imagine. You see, there’s a lot to be said about actually getting down to business and building wealth for yourself. However, not every millionaire believes in fiscal responsibility, and it ends up catching up with them.

You’ve probably seen numerous reports of millionaires that actually have bad credit. Now, you might think that it would be impossible — you have money, so why wouldn’t you have good credit? Well, these millionaires are essentially cash customers. You don’t have to live on credit if you don’t want to — but you’re going to have to try to buy everything with cash, which means that you have less money for the things that really matter to you in life.

That’s a hard thing to deal with when you really think about it. You might find that you really need to start looking at how successful millionaires stay successful and have good credit terms.

When you get right down to it, the truth is that true millionaires actually make sure that they have good credit. There are so many ways to leverage other people’s money for your own gains, which in turn makes you more money. We’re not saying to go out and take out a bunch of loans at all — that’s going to cause you further problems. What you need to do is look at your finances right now ñ instead of running form them. Millionaires know that knowledge of their finances is really where the power lies. Even if you have a financial expert someday telling you all of the right moves to make, you still want to make sure that you know what’s going on. Many fortunes have been lost simply because the person in question didn’t want to know anything. They just wanted their accountant to handle everything, and the accountant was less than honest. (more…)

Check Your Credit Reports Regularly

I strongly encourage my readers to check their credit reports regularly. Why, you ask?

Just about everything we do these days hinges on the contents of our credit reports. The days of not giving your credit much thought unless you were planning to apply for a loan, are long gone. Your credit reports can now determine whether or not you qualify for an apartment lease, insurance, or even a job (and yes, that often includes jobs that do not involve handling money). If you don’t know what is on your credit reports, you won’t be able to address any negative items that may be on them, and in turn you could find yourself jobless, uninsured, or without a place to live. (Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but at the very least you’d find your options extremely limited.)

Credit bureaus and creditors make mistakes when reporting/entering information on credit reports. You may think you know your own credit history and therefore don’t need to check your credit reports, but what you might not realize is that errors on consumer credit reports are very common. Information reported and entered by credit bureaus and creditors is subject to human error, and unfortunately the credit bureaus do not automatically verify the accuracy of the items contained within your report–they leave that up to you. So double-check the listings on your report to make sure they’re correct, because no one else is going to do it for you!

If you are the victim of identity theft, you can find out early (and thus minimize the damage) by checking your credit reports. If someone steals your identity and opens credit accounts in your name, you may not find out about it until months later, when bill collectors start coming out of the woodwork and demanding payment for debts you never knew existed. By that point, your credit will have been utterly destroyed and will probably be a nightmare to recover. But if you check your credit reports regularly, you will promptly discover any accounts you did not open yourself, and you’ll have the chance to prevent an already bad situation from becoming much, much worse. (more…)

The Trade-Offs Involved With a Challenged Credit Score

Now, after reading the title, you know that we mean bad credit, but why call it challenged in the first place? Are we just trying to spare your feelings and make it easier on you to take the information? Not really, though that’s a secondary goal. In all honestly it’s just about making sure that you really understand the nature of credit.

You see, if we only refer to it as bad credit, then you go off thinking that there’s no way that you can ever have good credit. Challenged credit means that there are obstacles in front of you temporarily to good credit. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person. Because of all of the things that require credit checking these days, we tend to use credit scores and information as a way to judge character. We see someone that has good credit as being more worth our time than someone that has challenged credit.

Yet if you have challenged credit right now, you should understand that not all hope has been lost. It’s not impossible get turn things around. You just need to make sure that you understand how to get things moving in the right direction.

First and foremost, you need to see what’s actually in your credit file. You should get one free report every year from every authority that’s authorized to collect that type of information on you. This means that you get a chance every year to check through your records and make sure that everything is correct the way it needs to be. (more…)

Credit Repair Agencies Aren’t Always On Your Side!

When you’re thinking about doing credit repair, one question might pop into mind: why bother doing it yourself when you can always contract it out to another organization? This is something that might work in theory, but there are a lot of companies waiting for you. You see, when you’re in a lot of debt, they know that you’re vulnerable. They know that you’re tired. And they know that you will do virtually anything to get out of debt.

The truth is that there are some credit repair agencies that really might be there to help. However, you need to make sure that you focus on what type of fees you’re going to be charged. It’s all well and good to think about trying to contract the work out to someone else. However, there are some problems that can pop up.

First and foremost, you never know how the company will pursue removing information from your credit report. Many of these companies use methods that are short term at best. Once they have their money, they’re gone — and in a few months, the information that you paid so much money to make “disappear” will be back on your credit report. In addition, you can also wake up sleeping giants, since many of these companies end up handling time barred debts inappropriately.

What you ultimately need to do is try to handle all of it on your own. It’s tempting to let someone else do it, but what if you find yourself in this situation again? It’s a lot smarter in the long run to have everything taken care of yourself. That way you know exactly how to do it, and you can even show people that need the help how to go about getting it done again.

That’s the real way to handle your finances. If you try to let everyone do everything for you, you will truly miss out on the opportunity to get things handled on your own. (more…)