How To Rebuild Your Credit Rating

Posted in Credit, Credit Rating, Finances, Financial Advice | Comments Off on How To Rebuild Your Credit Rating

Your credit rating has taken a beating. You regularly pay bills late. Sometimes you can’t make even minimum payments. Perhaps you’ve gone through a bankruptcy or the consumer proposal process.

But what now? How do you rebuild your credit rating?

Find Out Where You Stand
First, to see where you stand, get your sactual credit rating  from TransUnion Canada or Equifax Canada.

OK, you’ve absorbed the bad news. If you’ve gone through the bankruptcy or consumer proposals process with a licensed trustee such as Richard Killen & Associates, you would have had some credit counselling sessions that would give you valuable advice about how to manage your finances and restore your credit rating.

Replace Bad Credit With Good
You would be shown, for example, how to use credit wisely. You should buy only what you can afford to pay back and make payments on time. In fact, all your bills should be paid on time.

Simple to say, hard to do. The credit counselling sessions provided by Richard Killen & Associates Ltd. will give you strategies on how to achieve this discipline.

As a credit-redeeming strategy, you might even want to purposely get a loan, though it will probably be at a high interest rate. Just borrow $1,000 or so and make sure you make your monthly payments religiously. Automatic debit from your account is probably the best way to ensure that. After six months or so you’ll be receiving an R-1 rating from this creditor. That’s a start.

But Don’t Go Overboard
The loan-on-purpose strategy notwithstanding, you shouldn’t get too much credit. The more you have available to you, the more tempting it is to use. Having too much credit can also hurt your credit report. So do not fill in too many applications for credit and loans because every time you do, your credit history is checked, which can affect your score.

Get a Secured Credit Card
A secured credit card requires you to have a balance. So, for example, if you have a balance of $500, then you might have a credit limit of $500, maybe more depending on the creditor and your arrangements. In effect, it is a no-risk or small-risk credit card. But the very act of using the card and paying your credit card bills on time will help to restore your rating.

No Minimum Payments
Get in the habit of paying your bills, especially your credit card bills, in full, rather than making a minimum payment and carrying the balance. We can’t stress this tactic too much. It is the key to good credit card management.

There are many strategies you can use to get back to financial health. The best first step could be a free consultation with a licensed trustee at Richard Killen & Associates Ltd., who will help you to understand your options in dealing with credit challenges.

Contact Richard Killen
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