Give Yourself Some Credit... - ProbablyBusy.com

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It’s the elephant in the room. Nobody really likes talking about credit scores – but maybe it’s because we don’t know enough about them. Almost everybody has one, whether you like it or not. You can easily find out what your credit score is on one of the many websites which has the ability for you to search. You enter your past addresses, put in your name and date of birth and away they go – returning to you a score that is essentially one of two colours: red or green. If you are in the green, all is well. If you are in the red, it’s time to rethink your spending choices.

How Do I Get Out Of Bad Credit?

It’s not so much a case of getting yourself out of bad credit, it’s more a case of doing things which will improve your good credit rating. There are things to be done which may not seem like they will be able to get you in the green, such as taking out credit cards and spending certain amounts on them – but this is actually boosting what you’ve got available to you on your score. The more that you are able to prove that you are a good borrower by paying back your instalments on time, the more likely that lenders are to give you loans.

What If I Can’t Get A Loan?

There are certain places which are able to offer you a substantial loan despite the fact that you may have a bad history to your name. Look up a direct lender for poor credit loans and there should be quite a few that pop up on your search engine results. The APR will be considerably inflated compared to loans that you would get if you had a good credit rating, but this is mainly to cover the lender’s backs – you need to prove that you are able to pay back these amounts in order to improve your score.

What If I Have No Rating?

You need to start doing things to be able to get yourself a credit rating as soon as you can. This can be something simple, like taking out a store card and putting a few items on it – you just need to remember to pay it off. You can also become an authorised co-signatory on another person’s credit card if you don’t want to take one out yourself and retain full responsibility for it. Alternatively, taking out finance on things that you would usually pay for in full, such as household items like sofas and white goods, can see your credit rating improve whilst spreading your expenditures out across time. Getting on the electoral roll is another quick and easy way to ensure a good start to your credit score, and one that comes without any downside. Make sure you close off unused credit cards or phone contracts when they’ve served their purpose as this can indicate that you are trustworthy with money and is one of the first things creditors want to see when evaluating your credit score.