Maintain a Healthy Credit Score

You should check your score as frequently as possible, especially after actions that would likely affect your score like applying for new credit or making a big purchase. Checking your score may be anxiety-inducing, but it’s important that you keep track of your credit. 

Your credit-utilization rate is the amount of credit that you are using in relation to your total credit amount. A high credit utilization rate will likely have a negative effect on your credit. Try to keep the balances on your credit lines low to keep your credit utilization rate down. 

Are you paying your credit once per cycle? If financially possible, try to pay on your credit more frequently and bump up your payment amount slowly.

Once you’ve paid off a big debt, you may be tempted to just close the account. However, if it’s one of your older accounts, closing it may cause a big hit to your credit. This is because having a longer credit history is beneficial to your overall score, and closing old accounts will affect your score.

If you’re worried about misusing your credit line, try to come up with creative ways to abstain from overusing your credit while keeping the line open if possible.

This one may seem like a no-brainer but it is crucial to keep your credit score up. Missing payments is one of the most sure-fire ways to tank your score, so try to pay on all of your accounts on time and even early if possible, to avoid missing payments and harming your credit.

Often, one of the first things that people will do when they look to improve their credit is to apply for new credit. However, that application for new credit can actually harm your credit in the short term? Credit inquiries will affect your credit, though it’s normally minor and temporary.

To avoid lowering your credit too much, do your research on the credit card companies that you are looking to work with before you apply, so you aren’t applying for dozens of credit cards in a short time period.

Too often, people will only pay the bare minimum on their accounts, which keeps them in perpetual debt and doesn’t help your credit all that much. Especially if you have a high credit utilization rate, you will want to prioritize getting your debts down, which will slowly increase your score.

For each of the credit reporting companies, there is a specific breakdown that is used to come up with your credit score. By diversifying your accounts, you can provide a better base for your credit score and your finances as a whole.

Just checking your three-digit number is not always enough to adequately check your score.