“3 Ways To Improve Your Credit Score Fast” plus 1 more

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3 Ways To Improve Your Credit Score Fast Posted: 06 Oct 2011 04:00 AM PDT Currently I’m in the process of buying a home and selling my old one. As a result I’ve been searching around for some new financing as well and this has lead me to look into my credit score to see how well it’s doing. Now if you’re like me, you like to wait till the last minute to do things and this can be a huge problem when it comes to improving your credit score. The main reason being that in most cases for you to improve your score it’s going to take some time for this to happen. However there are things you can do to improve your credit fast and in this article I’m going to show you a few things I’ve done. Check For Mistakes The first thing you need to do is check your credit score over for mistakes of any kind. What you should know about the credit bureaus is that they are prone to making errors. As a result this will give you a chance to dispute the incorrect information and possibly improve your score. Below are a few common mistakes found on credit reports. Related Names. If your name is very common your information could get crossed and you could end up with someone else’s mistakes on your credit report. This happened to a close family member a few years back; in fact it got so bad that he was receiving collection calls for unpaid debts. Identity Theft. Another way typical mistakes end up on credit reports is by identity theft. If someone is able to steel your identity without you knowing about it you could end up with large amounts of debt and unpaid bills that could eventually get reported to the credit bureaus. Family. The final common mistake that people end up seeing on their credit report is between family members. This can happen when you have a father and son who might have very similar names or in some cases it could be identity theft as well. The most common forms of identity theft happens when a close family member steals the identity of another simply because their financial information is so easy to obtain. I should also mention when you have a mistake on your credit report you just have to contact the credit bureau to have it remove. However if you have any legitimate derogatory marks on your report there is no quick way to remove them. Cut Down Your Debt The next step on improving your credit score is to reduce your debt. When the credit bureaus look at your credit score they are going to consider two main factors, the total amount of credit available and the total amount of debt you have on those credit lines. For example, in my case I have a total of $8000 in total credit available in a given month. Currently I have a total of $900 of debt on my credit lines. This equates to around 11% of my total credit is being utilized which is very good. However if I were using more than 50% of my available credit it would hurt my credit score far more. So what should you do? Form a plan to pay down critical debts such as your credit cards. Don’t worry about your mortgage or auto loans. By cutting down your credit card debt you will be able to expand the total amount of credit you have and improve your credit score faster. Expand Your Current Credit Lines Finally, the last thing you can do to build an excellent credit score is to raise the amount of credit on your current credit lines. Doing this tends to boost your credit the most. The reason for this is because it has to do with credit utilization. As I explained earlier the more credit you have and the less debt you carry on your credit lines the better your score will be. However this may be the hardest of the three methods, simply because if you have a low credit score it’s going to be hard to convince your creditors to up your credit limit. So what should you do? Once you’ve completed the first two tips contact your creditors and ask about increasing your credit limit. If they won’t do it consider giving it some time to improve your credit and call back 6 months later. My Final Thoughts… As a final thought consider these ideas to speed up repairing your credit, however if you’re not sure if these ideas will improve your credit score check out CreditKarma.com. There you can get a free copy of your credit report and score but what’s great about Credit Karma is that they have a score simulator that allows you to test these different ideas before you actually implement them. To see if they work for you check your score today. This article was written by Chris Holdheide a personal finance blogger who writes for Stumble Forward, a blog about helping people avoid financial mistakes, improve their finances, and build wealth.

Dollar Matters: FINCON11 Recovery Edition Posted: 05 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT This past weekend I headed to Chicago for the Financial Blogger Conference. It was, hands down, the best conference I have ever been to. I go to Blogworld regularly, but this was much better. Mainly because I felt like I was already friends with everyone. The PF community is awesome, and I’m already geared up for FINCON12. Big, big thanks to Phil at PT Money for organizing the conference and making all this happen. Of course, I’m still recovering from staying up until 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., even days later. But it was totally worth it. And, for those who missed out on coming, you can read about it. While it’s impossible to list everyone that was there, here are some conference recaps and roundups from some of the folks I hung out in Chi-town. Hope to see you at the conference next year! Financial Blogger Conference 2011 — Meeting the PF Blogger World and More Free From Broke shares his conference experience, including stalking J.D. Roth. (Actually, I think stalking J.D. Roth was one of the most common pastimes at the conference.) I great recap of the conference. A Meeting of Minds: Financial Blogger Conference 2011 I can’t mention J.D. Roth without including his conference recap! He gives a great overview of his fantastic conference-opening speech. How to Handle Meeting Hundreds of Colleagues Flexo was one of the last people to call it a night (um, morning) the last day of the conference. You can read about all the awesome people he met while there, and find out more about what went on. Financial Blogger Conference 2011: Meeting Up With The Personal Finance Blogosphere Bible Money Matters shares his day-by-day conference experience — including his drive. A great recap of the whole conference, and who was there. A Gathering of Financial Minds — FinCon11 a Smashing Success From the smoothly running conference, to the great blogger service project, to hanging out with financial bloggers from around the country (and the world!), Cash Money Life shares his highlights from the conference. What I learned about personal finance bloggers from FINCON11 Mighty Bargain Hunter learned all about fellow PF bloggers at FINCON11. Read about his insights and impressions. The Financial Bloggers Conference (#FINCON11) Saved this Blog The Jenny Pincher shares her inspirational story of how FINCON11 helped put her back on track to keep up with her blog. A great story. Lessons Learned from the Financial Blogger Conference PF Firewall takes a look at the valuable lessons learned from the financial blogger conference. Other Posts from Conference Attendees Here are a few offerings from some of the folks I hung around with at the conference: The Three Factors that Will Send Gold Soaring Even More at Canadian Finance Blog. Marriage Monday: Don’t Forget Your Spouse’s Other Roles at 20 and Engaged. Why I Make $20 Per Tweet on Twitter and You Don’t at Yes, I Am Cheap. Ten Ways To Save On Your Electric Bill This Winter at Money Q&A. Don’t talk to insurance adjusters. Do get free money from banks at Surviving and Thriving. Buying a Laptop: Thank Goodness Its No Longer 1999 at Generation X Finance. If I missed your conference recap, be sure to include it in the comments so we can all read it!

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