Credit Score Scale

Working on improving your place on the credit scale is the best thing you can do for your financial future. The better your history the easier everything will be for you. Your score effects more things than you may realize, for example, the interest rates on any loan you apply for, your insurance rates, rental applications, and often these days well paying jobs will require a credit check as part of the application process. For all of these reasons it’s good to be as high up as you can be.

The credit scale ranges from about 300 to 800, but most people fall within 450 to 750. If you’re fortunate enough to have a rating over 720 you have what is considered an excellent rating and will want to keep on doing what you’re doing! If not, exercise your finances lightly, make payments on time each month, and check your report regularly for mistakes or areas for possible improvement.

The first thing you want to do is take a look at your credit report. Check it over for mistakes, for instance, are any accounts that you’ve paid marked open or overdue? Is your limit on your cards marked down correctly? If not you should call the responsible companies and keep calling until they change these things.

One of the important factors in calculating your credit rating is the amount of credit you’ve used versus the amount available to you, so you want to make sure your limits are marked as high up as they should be. For this same reason paying down your balance on your cards will have a big effect. As a general rule it is smart to pay off your balance in full every month and never use more than thirty percent of your limit.

Of course the other things you can do to improve your place on the credit scale include taking care of your old debts. Anything over seven years old should have aged off your report, if not, call and have that fixed. When you pay off a debt talk to the company and agree to pay if they’ll take it off your report. You can also try writing a letter to the company and dispute the claim from them, saying that it isn’t your debt. They’ll either write back with proof, or within thirty days decide that it isn’t worth it and leave you alone.

All of these things will help you repair past mistakes, keep in mind that it’s important to also build up a history of healthy use for the future, showing that you can make payments on time and pay things off in full. Lightly exercise your finances responsibly and over time you will improve your place on the credit scale.