The Best Ways to Boost Your Credit Score

Paying your bills on time and meeting your financial responsibilities will boost your score the most. Owing a reasonable amount of money and being able to repay it will show lenders that you take your finances seriously and pose little threat of lost money.

There are a few tips that, more than any other, will boost your credit score the most :

1. Pay your bills on time.

One of the best ways to improve your credit score is simply to pay your bills on time. This is absurdly simple but it works very well, because nothing shows lenders that you take debts seriously as much as a history of paying promptly. Every lender wants to be paid in full and on time.

Paying your bills on time also ensures that you don’t get hit with late fees and other financial penalties that make paying your bills off harder. Paying your bills in a timely way makes it easier to keep making payments on time.

Of course, if you have had problems making your payments on time in the past, your current credit score will reflect this. It will take a number of months of repaying your bills on time to improve your credit score again, but the effort will be well worth it when your credit risk rating rebounds.

2. Avoid excessive credit.

If you have many lines of credit or several huge debts, you make a worse credit risk because you are close to “over-extending your credit.” This simply means that you may be taking on more credit than you can comfortably pay off.

You should stick to one or two credit cards and one or two other major debts (car loan, mortgage) in order to have the best credit rating. Do not apply for every new

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credit line or credit card “just in case.” Borrow only when you need it and make sure to make payments on your debts on time.

You should also know that taking out lots of new credit accounts in a relatively short period of time will cause your credit score to nosedive because it will look as though you are being financially irresponsible.

3. Pay Your Debts

If you are serious about improving your credit score, then start with the largest debt you have and start paying it down so that you are using a less large percentage of your credit total.

If you can pay off your credit card in full each month, that is even better. What counts here is what percentage of your total credit limit you are using - the lower the better.