How do I get Good Credit?
Getting good credit can seem like something of a mystery if you don’t understand what exactly affects your credit score. To many people, a credit score seems like an almost mystically arrived at number, with little bearing to the real world. Because the credit score companies are rarely as transparent as they could be, discerning how exactly they determine who has good credit and who has bad credit can be something of a mystery. Thankfully, because of the amount of energy poured into understanding credit scores over the past few years, there are some well agreed upon steps almost anyone can take to get better credit. First of all, it’s important to understand what a credit score is. Credit scores are just ratings of a person’s credit, based on a wide range of criteria, from how much debt they are carrying, to past delinquencies, to the length of time they’ve had lines of credit. The most common credit scoring system in the United States if the Fair Isaac Corporation score, or FICO scor
Building and maintaining a healthy credit history–and a good credit score of 700 or higher–takes responsibility and discipline. In exchange, your good credit will reward you with easy access to affordable credit for buying a home or car, going back to school, or paying for any number of life events. Everybody starts without a credit history. While it’s hard to get credit without a credit history, it can be done, and you can build good credit relatively quickly. Most importantly, pay all of your bills on time There is no single more important factor in determining how good your credit will be than whether you pay your bills on time, every time. Paying just one credit card late once can significantly lower your credit score for several years. Paying late more than once will lower it even further, and failing to pay a creditor altogether will almost ruin your credit for up to seven years. Next, use credit frequently but responsibly Creditors like to see that borrowers have managed more th
