Jill Russo Foster

Tips for Successful Personal Finances

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Your Path to Great Credit

You know that your credit is an important part of your financial life.  You know that the higher your score the better the terms are when you apply for credit – lower interest rate, lower monthly payments and more.  You may have wanted to improve your credit score, but it’s too confusing and you don’t know where to start.

Let me tell you that this is a journey and there is no instant magic pill.  It takes hard work and dedication on your part.  Where do you start?  The first step is to know your credit score.  You can get a close approximation of your FICO score.  Yes, it’s time to face the reality and look at it.  You need to know where you stand.  To see your credit score, go to my resource page and see how to access your credit score for free.

The next step is to make a plan.  These are the small steps you take each week to do just one thing to improve your credit score.  They can range from not using a credit card to make a purchase, make sure to pay that bill on time, bringing in more money to be able to make that payment and more.

I know this is hard.  Years ago I had way too much credit card debt and I couldn’t image that I would every be debt free.  But there came a day when I came to the realization that I needed to deal with it.  I made a plan and stuck to it and was out of debt. As a result, my credit score increased to be excellent.  I know that you too can do this.

Here are some more information to help you understand what it’s costing you.

Good credit card debt

Reading your credit report

Budgeting

We’ll talk more about this tomorrow.

Did your credit score go up this past weekend?

In the past, you may have reviewed your credit score and found someone else’s information on your report?

With this new change, credit reporting agencies will be using a new three point (name, address, social security or date of birth) check system before adding liens and judgements to someone’s credit report.  Hopefully, this will stop some information from appearing on the wring person’s credit report, thus lowering the credit score.

As of July 1, you may see liens and/or judgements that are not yours removed from your credit and therefore your credit score will go up.  It’s estimated that 10 to 12 million consumers will see their credit scores rise by 10 to 40 points this past weekend.

Bottomline, you need to stay on top of your credit reports and check them regularly.  Do you want to be reminded to check one of your credit report every four months, then sign up for my newsletter Money Choices and you will receive a reminder three times per year to help you stay on top of your credit report. www.JillRussoFoster.com

 

Worried about your accounts being hijacked?

We personally view our bank and credit cards accounts weekly – we check for unrecognized transactions.  We use two step authentication. We don’t do this from our phones, only home computers.  You may think we are overly cautious, but here’s what CNBC has so say.