Repairing my credit has been one of the best lessons I have ever learned. If I did put myself in such a bad situation with my credit I never would have understood how important it is to maintain a good credit score. Believe me I am not saying I am glad I once had bad credit and that I am still working hard on improving it but I am glad I did my research.
In college I was the only one in my dorm who was not getting weekly allowances put into my bank account and it was tough. My friends and I would all go to the mall and I wanted to shop the way they did. The only difference between us was they were using their parents money and I was opening every store credit card available. It was amazing everyone wanted to give me credit! It only took me three months to rack up $3000 worth of credit card debt. That may not sound like a lot but for an eight teen year old college student it was. Well, when the bills came I ignored them. A year later I was lucky to have my family save me and pay off my debts but not before I totally ruined my credit report with many late payments and even a charge off.
So below are things I would like to share with you that I learned from my bad credit:
DO NOT MAKE LATE PAYMENTS- Late payments stay on your credit report for seven years. If you neglect to pay the bill at all you will have a charge off on your account which is, the bank considers you as a loss and close your account, or even worse you will get sued by the bank.
DO NOT MAX OUT YOUR CREDIT CARDS- Using all of your available credit is not good. Try and use 20% or less of what you have available. The less credit you use the better your score will be.
DO NOT LET AN ACCOUNT GO INTO COLLECTIONS- Having an account go into collections will haunt you for seven years! Do not let it happen!
DO NOT CLOSE OLD ACCOUNTS- Keep as many accounts open as you can. Two reasons: 1) The more available credit the better. 2) It will lengthen your credit history which is good.
I know having a bad credit history is scary but the sooner you do something about the sooner you will improve your credit score. The first step in improving your credit is to go to www.annualcreditreport.comand get a free copy of your credit report. After you receive your report go through it carefully and make sure all the information is accurate. Then begin to see how you can repair your credit to improve your credit score. It may be overwhelming and it may take time but it is all worth it because good credit is very important and will make your life easier.