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Fixing Your Credit Yourself
Fixing your credit yourself doesn’t have to be as hard as it’s made out to be. If you’ve been turned down a few times because of your low score it’s easy to start feeling like you’re doomed forever, but the truth is that there are many small changes you can make that will have a huge impact.
Before you can do anything you need to get a copy of your credit report, which you can do free (once a year) online. Your score is calculated based on information in this report, so you’ll need this to know what you need to work on.
Probably the biggest thing you can do to help yourself, that takes a bit more effort and time for most, is to pay down any balances you have open. This will go a long way towards fixing your credit. Of course, many don’t have the option to do this immediately, but over time this is the best thing you can do to help yourself.
Once you have your report the first thing you’re going to want to do, because it is the easiest and fastest, is check over your report for mistakes. We’re not really interested in things like misspellings of your name, we’re looking for accounts you have paid off in full marked open, or overdue. An important factor in calculating your score is the ratio of the credit you’ve used, versus that which is available to you. Look at where your card limits are listed and check to see if they’re correct, if they are marked as lower you’ll want to have this fixed. Any mistakes you find you can call and ask companies to change them, if they’re unhelpful keep calling until it gets fixed.
As a general rule, on a month to month basis, I recommend using less than thirty percent of your limit on your cards, and paying them off in full each month. This will give you a healthy record of using your finances sparingly and carefully.
While there, of course, more things you can to help fix your credit yourself, these steps will give you a good running start.
Getting the Best Unsecured Loans
You might think that you can’t control what rates lenders will offer you, which is true to an extent, but there is actually a lot of things both small and large that you can do to improve your application and your search that will help you find the best unsecured loans offers.
The first thing you want to do, which may seem a little off course, is get a copy of your credit report. You can do this free online once a year. The report will not show you what your score is, but it will show you all the information used to calculate your score. First check this over for errors, such as closed accounts marked overdue or open, or your credit limit marked lower than what it really is. An important factor in your score is the credit available to you versus the amount you have used so you want this to be as high as possible. If you have any high card balances that you are able to pay down, do that! This will help your score greatly.
While your score is an important factor, there are still more things to consider. Have you lived at the same place, and had the same employer, for the last few years? This shows a lender that you are a stable customer and is something you’ll want to point out on your application. If you’ve had financial problems in the past caused by a specific factor that no longer exists, such as medical bills, student loans, or a divorce, you’ll also want to point this out. You don’t want to focus on this for too long, but a short two or three sentence explanation will help, lenders will take this into consideration.
When you go to start your loan search, whether you plan to use an online lender or a local lender, I recommend doing a brief internet search. I recommend looking at five sites and looking at their rates and their terms and conditions. This will give you an idea of what to expect while shopping around for the best offer. A lot of customers only look at the rates, which lenders know, so they often hide a lot of fees in their terms, so do make sure to read them over.
If you work on cleaning up your application to present yourself in the best light, and do a search through five lenders offers, you’ll be on your way to finding the best unsecured loan for your situation.