4 Easy Ways To Repair Your Credit
Credit repair is the name given to the process of helping yourself to improve your credit score. It’s a vital set of techniques that every adult should have some kind of handle on, but it can often be overwhelming, especially when you consider that a simple Google search throws up thousands upon thousands of results. Who are you supposed to believe, and who’s trying to pull the wool over your eyes?
Another problem is that, too often, these articles and guides focus on making credit repair seem like an incredibly technical job that only real experts can make use of. That’s why we’ve decided to come up with 4 of the easiest ways to get going on your credit repair journey.
We don’t believe in making things sound more difficult than they are, and while some of these tips are time-consuming, none of them require a high-level understanding of credit, finances, or markets, so just about anybody can make use of them and start applying the logic behind them to their own situation.
But that’s enough preamble: let’s get straight into the list. Here are the 4 easiest ways to repair your credit score.
1: Take A Good Look At What’s Going On
One of the simplest ways to actually get started on your credit repair journey is just taking stock of where exactly you currently stand with regards to your financial health. This may sound a little silly (because why do you need to look around? Shouldn’t you be looking forward?) Or even insulting (of course you know what’s going on with your financial life), but in reality it’s neither of those two things. It’s just good practice.
This is going to be a valuable tool for getting your credit repair process underway in earnest irrespective of the circumstances which tanked your score in the first place. That’s why it’s the first item on our list—because everybody can apply it and see results right away. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been financially irresponsible or if you’ve been an unfortunate victim of identity theft: getting a good look at what’s actually going on with your accounts will be vital for knowing how to design a strategy moving forward.
You’re going to need to get good at making lists, as well. Perhaps you’re the kind of person who already has lists for everything. If that’s the case, then congratulations. You’re well on your way already. For many of us, though, being naturally organized just isn’t something that comes easily, and we can use a little extra help. There are a few things you should be keeping in mind as you go about painting a picture of your current financial state of affairs, and we’ll go into those now.
The first step is to take careful note of absolutely everything you spend money on. From car loan repayments right the way down to a pack of gum you bought at the store, start keeping track of every single outgoing purchase. This can be a little laborious, but once you get into the habit it’s something you don’t even need to think about: it’ll come automatically.
By starting your outgoing expenses list at the very top, with the most expensive financial commitments, and then moving downwards towards the cheapest, you’ll be able to come up with a thorough picture of how things are actually going, and what needs to be your biggest priority moving forward with your credit repair process.
So, for example, you could start off with your credit card, mortgage, and vehicle payments; and then move towards your monthly expenses (such as groceries, leisure expenses, and clothes); before finally moving towards the less significant, day-to-day purchases, like a cup of coffee at. Starbucks or a book you picked up at the airport.
Once you’ve got the list all compiled, give yourself a pat on the back. Not only is this the most important credit repair strategy of the whole lot, it’s also one of the most time-consuming—although it’s very easy to do, it does take up a significant chunk of time. The rest will all be quicker.
2: Prioritize Like Your Life Depends On It
Once you’ve got your list, we’d be willing to bet that you’ll have found a surprise or two along the way. Financial surprises are usually never nice, and figuring out exactly what you’ve been spending your hard-earned money on can be one of the more distressing ways to start your day, but don’t panic. This is all part of the process, and once you’re done with your credit repair journey and your score is a sparkling 700+, you’ll be really happy with yourself for having made these decisions.
The decisions we’re talking about, of course, are going to involve prioritizing certain aspects of your life over others. The best way to get your credit score back to where it should be is to make sure you wipe off any delinquent payments from your record. A delinquents payment is just a bill you didn’t pay in full and on time, and it can remain on your record for up to seven years, so that’s going to be the most important area for you to clear up.
Depending on your exact situation, the delinquent payments you have to sort out may be insignificant, or they may be hefty. But no matter how big or small they are, you’re going to have to cut spending from some other part of your lifestyle in order to make up the payments you’re overdue sooner rather than later. Where you decide to trim the fat from your budget is up to you, but we have a few personal recommendations.
The first of these is leisure. We’re not suggesting that you renounce fun as a concept entirely—far from it. There’s no point getting a great credit score if you’re going to be miserable. But there probably are some areas where you can afford to cut back. Eating out is a popular one. If you can just half the amount of times you go out to eat each month, you’d be amazed at how much extra money you’ll have—money that should go straight towards clearing up your delinquent payments, in order for the fastest, most impactful benefits to your score.
3: Learn To Love The Process
We know what you’re probably thinking: what is there to love about fixing a credit score? And, to be completely honest, we agree with you—to an extent. While credit scores themselves are complicated, mathematical pieces of bureaucracy that we’d all rather do without, the process you’re going to want to learn to love is that of keeping your financial affairs organized. If you can make this a repeated pattern of thought, you’d be amazed at how many other aspects of your life will fall into place almost without even consciously trying.
A great way to learn to love the process of organizing things is by giving yourself some sort of incentive to stay on top. Whether that’s treating yourself to a solo trip to the cinema every now and again, or whether it’s a free chocolate bar at the store that you won’t count into your diet plan, providing rewards is the best way to motivate yourself to continue what you’re doing.
Another method of helping yourself to fall in love with credit repair is by making the process of making lists fun. They don’t have to be dull, lifeless, and colorless, and we’d actually recommend that you make them as beautiful as possible. If they’re bright and cheerful, you’re much more likely to look forward to returning to them; and if you’re already in a good mood, the work you perform will be that much more accurate and precise, not to mention beneficial in the long term.
Moreover, practicing how to maintain a reasonable budget can be a really exciting way to spend your time, believe it or not. With a few careful decisions, you’ll probably be able to radically increase the amount of disposable income you have—and it doesn’t need to be some Wolf Of Wall Street-level money either. A great example of this is Acorns, which is a really clever app which basically invests your spare change into reliable stocks. It does this by rounding up any purchase you make to the nearest dollar, and buying shares with the remainder. You won’t even notice the difference until you pull up your account at the end of the year and find out that you’ve got a few hundred dollars extra that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.
4: Work With A Friend
This is probably the easiest item on this whole list to perform, and it’s coincidentally also one of the most effective. Studies have shown that humans are more likely to stick to just about anything they’re trying to do with they’re doing it with a buddy. After all, that’s part of how we’re wired—we’re social animals at base, and by working together we’re better at keeping up with our own expectations.
If you can find a friend who’d like to embark with you on a credit repair journey, it’ll make it much easier to stick to the whole thing. By being held accountable, you’ll feel more strongly the need to keep to the guidelines you’ve laid out for yourself, and your friend will be able to experience the same benefits. Plus, there’s the fact that it should probably be pretty easy to find somebody who’d like to work with you on the credit repair side of things. After all, who doesn’t want a better credit score?
All of the other points on this list are possible to be integrated into a partnership, so while you’re both working on your budgets, you could be collaborating and sharing tips on how best to stick to the process. Or think about the possibilities when it comes to sharing dinners out together—you’ll both know that you’re saving money and securing yourself a more stable financial future, which is to set the right tone for any social occasion.
We’d all like to have better credit scores, just like pretty much all of us would like to have more money. That fundamental human desire is the key to point 4 on this list, which is a neat way of tying together all our other suggestions for the easiest ways to repair your credit.
Summary
Well, there you have it. Our top 4 suggestions for easy ways to repair your credit all on your own. Sure, it’s possible to make use of a company who would do the process for you, but when it comes to credit repair there really isn’t much point in that. So many of these techniques are so straightforward that you’re perfectly able to make use of them on your own, especially if you’re so committed to the credit repair process that you can guarantee to yourself that you’ll commit to the journey in the long-term.
Once you’ve put these techniques into action, you could expect to see results on your score within the first few months or so, with more serious benefits coming in at around the year mark. And the best part of repairing your credit is that the positive effects you’ll notice will have a huge effect on some of the biggest decisions you’ll have to make in your financial life, like organizing a new car deal, or becoming a homeowner for the first time.
If you’ve been working on credit repair but your score still isn’t where you’d like it to be yet, and you’ve been having a hard time getting a car loan approved, why not send us an email here at autoloans.ca? We specialize in helping people with sub-optimal loans get approved, and we just might be the answer to your current conundrum.