6 Tips You Can Use to Help Improve Your Credit Score

Credit scores are complicated and because rating agencies consider many factors, the process of improving them can look different for everyone.

When Willard Carpenter, 68, wanted a loan to open a new business, he realized that his credit score was not high enough to get approved. After checking his credit history, he found several issues he needed to solve.

Carpenter’s credit was heavily affected by credit card debt that his father left on their joint account after his death over a year and a half ago. He’s also had no credit cards for at least 10 years — he stopped using them after he declared bankruptcy due to credit card debt.

Now, he is working with a financial advisor to erase his father’s debt from his history and start building up his credit in a safe way.

Here are some tips for how you can do the same:

KNOW YOUR STARTING POINT

The first step towards increasing your credit score is knowing your current score and what is showing in your credit report, said Kristin Myers, editor in chief of The Balance, a personal finance website.

“You can’t fix what you don’t know,” she said. “See if there are any errors or if you’ve previously made a dispute and it keeps showing up.”

Once you see what is in your report, you can start identifying where you might have weaknesses. For example, if you have a large amount of debt on one of your credit cards, start paying off that debt to reduce the credit utilization that is affecting your credit score.