If you are having credit troubles, you are not alone. Many people are denied funding, financing and loans everyday because their credit is poor, bad or nonexistant! Most of these people make the same credit mistakes over and over.
These common mistakes and tips can help you improve your credit score and your chances of getting a loan at better interest rates.
1. Check your credit report. It is one of the most common mistakes, but you need to know if what is stated on your credit report is correct or not. Incorrect entries could negatively impact your score.
2. Always pay your bills on time. One of the most obvious credit mistakes, but many people ignore this adage and build a record of late payments. Even if your payment arrives only a few days late each month it still hurts your rating. Also not paying on time causes unnecessary late fees and charges and can often lead to increased interest rates.
3. Report any address changes to creditors to avoid misplaced bills and late payments.
4 . If you ignore your credit problems, it will only cause more negative impact to your rating. Contact and talk to your creditors before you are late on your next scheduled payment and make arrangements to make your payments on a slightly altered schedule. This can help keep negative reports from going to the credit bureaus.
5 . Avoid when possible from using expensive types of credit. It costs too much in interest and fees and is negatively scored.
6. Do not charge more than you can afford. This will only lead to larger and larger debt and higher interest rates, fees and penalties. Also it puts you in a position where you may not easily be able to pay off these accumulated debts for years, or ever. If you must charge at all, make sure you can pay off the total amount at the end of each billing cycle.
7. Avoid exceeding you credit limit. Going over your limits will cause you to have to pay over-limit fees, which will tend to lower your credit score with creditors and will cause negative remarks on credit reports. It is never a good idea to exceed the boundaries set up in your credit agreement, doing so can only serve to decrease your ability to borrow money at desired interest rates.
8. Avoid accumulating too much credit, ie; too many credit cards. Doing so can negatively impact your score due to the fact that lenders may doubt your ability to pay off all of your debt if you were to actually borrow or charge the full amount of your credit lines.
9. Avoid paying only the minimum amounts due on your credit cards each month. Not only does it keep your account balances high, causes increased interest charges, and the long payment term necessary to pay it off; it also negatively impacts your credit score.
10. Avoid keeping your credit cards maxed out. This can cause a negative impact to your credit score and your ability to borrow additional funds.
While this is not an exhaustive list of credit mistakes, improve on some or all of these outlined above and you can improve your credit report score and your ability to gain the confidence of additional lenders in the future.
About the Author
James Smith publishes information on credit issues at http://www.loans-online-i.com/ . Visit the website for more information and resources. This article may be freely reprinted as long as the author's resource box and url links remain intact.