There are many ways that you are able to increase your credit score. Making all of your monthly bill payments on time is one way. Keeping the balance of total available revolving debt limited to approx. 30% of your total credit limit is another way.Avoid taking on consumer installment credit accounts. These are the type of accounts offered by retail furniture, appliance, etc. type stores. Many offer "90 days same as cash" or "no interest for one year" to sound attractive. Having these type of accounts will have a negative effect on your credit score.
Another good way to increase your score is to take out a secured credit card. The credit card will show the creditors that you have more available credit to you. The longer the card is open, the better that it reflects on your credit as well. Also, since it is already secured with your money, you will not be able to get yourself into any sort of spending trouble or bad habits.
If you cannot afford to pay your credit card balances down to 30% or less, you may request that your creditor increase your limit. This will accomplish the same thing, although you can't rely on the creditor's willingness to cooperate. Do not try this if you have a habit of paying for things with the card. You don't want to get yourself into more trouble.
30, 60, and 90 day late payments hurt your score more than anything else. A 30 day late payment occurs as soon as the payment is late, not 30 days after it is late. Creditors will not always report late payments immediately, if you make the payment soon after the due date. However, you can't depend on this. The best thing you can do is make all of your payments early, just to be sure they are paid on time.
To increase your credit score you can also limit the number of credit inquiries that you have against you by limiting the amount of new credit applications you complete (stop applying for the credit cards that offer a free gift giveaway when you apply). You can also make sure that you don't close old accounts because the length of your credit history plays an important role in credit scoring. A long established credit history is much better than a short patchy credit history.
Also make sure that you do not let past due accounts get turned over to collection. Not only will you lose a good tradelines account you will also impact your credit score negatively when the collection reports on your credit report.
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