Repairing your credit during the holiday season seems like an oxymoron, right? What you probably don’t know is that with the right advice and team of professionals on your side, getting your credit rating boosted is easier than you thought. Here are three simple things you can do during the holiday season to achieve a better credit rating.
1. Use cash if possible. Scared you are going to max out your credit cards? One of the best ways to increase your scores during the holiday season is to not use your credit cards at all. Keeping your credit cards under the 30% credit limit ratio (using less than 30% of the credit amount you were approved for) ensures you’ll get a positive credit rating for the reporting period. Don’t use, you can’t lose! Managing your credit by only spending what you have is the easiest first step in actively pursuing long-term financial management.
2. Secure your safety net. If not spending your credit cards is not an option during the holiday season at least protect yourself from yourself. Call each of your credit card companies and ask them what date they report to the credit bureau. At least if you know the date they report to the credit bureaus, you can budget and plan to pay off the full amount or whatever is need to get under the 30% credit limit ratio so your scores don’t drop due to your holiday spending. If you have to be Santa to others, at least be a good elf to yourself.
3. Don’t apply to be declined. Knowledge is power, and knowing your credit scores can prevent you from damaging your credit prematurely. Before you say yes to the credit offer that will get you 25%-35% off your total purchase, make sure you’re going to get approved for it. Before setting a foot in the store, you want to pull your credit with one of the few credit vendors. You pulling your own report does not affect your credit and it’s considered a soft inquiry for general purposes.
Make sure the vendor you are using is providing you all three of the major credit bureaus fico scores and reports. Some vendors give you a version of your credit scores which some creditors don’t use to determine a credit evaluation. Which means it does not help you know what your credit scores are. 2 major credit vendors that give you all 3 of your scores and reports are privacyguard.com and creditchecktotal.com.
Once you pull your report and see what your scores are, you can determine if you can take advantage of discounts and new store card offers. Always ask before applying if they know what the credit requirements are for the credit you’re applying for. If they don’t know, always go by the rule of thumb that most store cards want you to have a middle credit score of 640-660 and no previous delinquent account with the same creditor. If you don’t meet those requirements, don’t apply and damage your score.
Have questions? Reach out to us today so we can give you the tools to get your credit rating up to par.
