subject: How to Build Credit - This is my Story on how I Improved My Credit Score [print this page] How to Build Credit - This is my Story on how I Improved My Credit Score
I remember a couple of years ago when I had a bad credit score, and more issues on my report than I care to recall. I had no idea on how to build credit. Here I was with a credit score in the low 500's and nobody would approve me for anything, without ripping my head off with rediculous rates. Luckily though I had a background working with credit, and that caused me to start to take a deeper look into how to build credit. I need to share with you my story and how my credit has rebounded.
First it's likely good for you to know where I started at. In 2003 I opened a business and ended up not doing to well with it for a while. It was my first expedition into being self-employed and this caused some real havoc on me financially. I couldn't afford to put gas in my car at times, much less the money to pay for my obligations in a timely fashion. I ended up getting things together, but by that time the damage was done. I had a couple of credit cards that ended up being charged off and the bill collectors were coming after me.
In December of 2007 I had an auto that started breaking down on me. I was twenty-eight years old and I needed to ask my dad to cosign on a loan with me so I would not need to pay an interest rate at about 18%. By having him cosign for me I was able to get an interest rate at 4% and I still have that vehicle to this day. I've saved thousands of dollars in charges because of this. This, by the way, was the first credit that I had since the problems I had in 2003.
With having this vehicle loan now reporting on time payments, finally I was ready to get approved for a credit card in May 2008, but the limit on the card was only $400. While that was great and all, with my past credit score it took a long time for any other company to approve me for anything. An alternative choice for me at this time also would've been to get a secured credit card to couple with the other credit I was building.
Come to discover, the credit limits on credit card accounts have a ton to do with our abilities to get more credit. The higher your credit limits, the better it is for your credit. Think about it, if you are signing up for another credit card and have had some issues during the past financially, then it's tough for any company to get a good read on whether you'd be a good credit risk. This holds especially true if you're available revolving credit is only $400.
This is when I began learning about credit repair. I had a choice to make. I could either wait for 7 years minimum for this info to fall off my credit report, or I could kickstart things and find out how to do the credit repair. I chose to kickstart things, and I'm so happy i did. To make a long story short, I've been ready to get pretty much everything removed except 2 things, one being an open charge off account that has had some illegal fees added to it. I could even bring a suit against this company because they are clearly violating my rights because they haven't been able to come up with a full accounting of how they got their figures. This account is lined up to fall off in just a couple of months so I haven't worried.
Obviously I've had a pretty significant improvement in my scores with all three of the bureaus. I've now qualified for 2 more unsecured credit cards and will continue to see major enhancements in my scores over the next year. Now knowing precisely how credit works, I also got a $5,000 line of credit that reports to the bureaus. Now this is not a conventional account, and I can not utilize it for much of anything other than to get ebooks online from their site, but it is's an awesome account to have that has helped my credit score quite a bit, and opened up the door to afford me the opportunity to get the unsecured credit cards.
Had I not known how to build credit, or learned credit repair then I'd be miles away from where I am right now. This has got me thinking, because I am really no different than anybody else which has had problems financially in the past. The only difference is that I learned how to build credit and I want to be in a position to share my experience and knowledge with any person that is willing to learn. These methods work 100% of the time if implemented correctly, but this is all done with the long term in mind. If you have got a long term vision you too can have these kinds of results.
