~Credit Clean Up~

As I have gotten older and wiser I sometimes think about things that I should have done better in my younger years. One of those things is maintaining my credit and making sure that my score is awesome and there are no old debts attached to my name and credit history. Being that I work in a profession that analyzes the credit of others I have in the last four years made up my mind to make sure my credit history is A1. One of my "side goals" that I spoke about in my previous blog was cleaning up my credit history and making sure that my score is high.

The goal was to pay off all old bills that were accumulated from other people that used my name to get things as well as any old bills that I did not choose to pay at the time. I will be honest as to say when I was younger credit was not important to me at all so I did not care. I would get credit cards spend them up and then pay or not pay the bills.

Now that I am older and I am more mature and I care about my future and credit I made up my mind that cleaning up my credit and making sure my credit score was good enough so that if I wanted to get a house or car or anything in between that I would be able to do so. I have succeeded in that and I am proud of myself for being patient and taking the time to research credit and how it works and how to clean up old debts etc. I monitor my credit on a regular and I make sure to always pay all of my bills on time.

I am fortunate to have a mother who is knowledgeable in credit as well as family members who are financial advisors that help people with teaching them how to manage money and clear up old debts to start the journey of having good credit. The job that I do at work I also take note on what the creditors are looking for because at my job I look at the history of credit for my clients and see what makes credit good or bad in the eyes of companies that they are reaching out to concerning loans. Everything that I learn I apply that to myself and make sure to make better choices moving forward.

The journey to good credit is not hard at all it just takes patience and research! A few tips I will share with you all is this:

• Research how to clean up your credit by watching YouTube videos on people who will teach you the ways in which they went to get their credit in a great place
• Get your free credit reports for all 3 bureaus Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian (one per year)
• Compare your credit reports to see what is showing up on your reports (some things will not be on all credit reports but some will )
• Old debts: call each company to get the debts paid or make payment arrangements until you can pay them off once paid off your credit score will shoot up
• Once you get everything cleaned off make sure you have atleast 2 credit cards you are using and paying on each month. Keep your credit card balances low though (research this on your own to understand why. I did not know this was important until I tried to buy a car last year and although my credit was good I did not have consistent credit that I was paying on each month and the one card I did have for years I closed it big mistake. Although I got my car but it was hard because it is more than just having a good credit score creditors are looking for a good credit history of how you maintain your credit cards, loans etc )