Guides and tips on repairing your credit score and removing negative items from your credit report.
Self-employed people rebuild credit the same way everyone does — on-time payments, low balances, and accurate reports — but with two extra challenges: irregular income and business debt mixing with personal credit. To rebuild, budget around your lowest-earning month, keep a cash buffer so slow months don’t cause late payments, put minimum payments on autopay, …
How Self-Employed People Can Rebuild Their Credit Score Read More »
To calculate your credit utilization, divide your credit card balance by your credit limit and multiply by 100. Do it for each card and for all cards combined, because scoring models look at both. For example, a $450 balance on a $3,000 limit is 15% utilization. A good rule of thumb is to keep utilization …
Credit Utilization Calculator: Find Your Ideal Balance Read More »
Your FICO score is calculated from five categories of information in your credit report: payment history (35%), amounts owed (30%), length of credit history (15%), credit mix (10%), and new credit (10%). Payment history and amounts owed — mainly your credit card utilization — make up about 65% of your score, which is why paying …
How Your Credit Score Is Calculated: The 5 Factors Explained Read More »
The Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) is a federal law that protects you from unfair and deceptive credit repair practices. Most importantly, it prohibits credit repair companies from charging you before they fully perform the services they promised. It also bans false or misleading promises, prohibits advising you to lie to credit bureaus or create …
What Does the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) Actually Protect You From? Read More »
No — under current credit bureau policy, medical collections under $500 should not appear on your credit reports from Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. The bureaus also remove paid medical collections of any amount and wait one year before reporting new medical collections. If a medical collection under $500 still shows up, you can dispute it …
Does Medical Debt Under $500 Still Show on Your Credit Report? Read More »
If you see a debt collector’s name on your credit report that you don’t recognize, it usually means a debt you once owed was sold to a debt buyer or assigned to a collection agency — so the name you see isn’t the company you originally did business with. Every collection entry should list the …
The Complete Guide to Understanding Debt Collector Names on Your Credit Report Read More »
You can sometimes get a debt consolidation loan with bad credit, but it’s harder, and the loan only helps if it actually lowers your total cost or makes your payments more manageable. Options include bad-credit personal loans (often with high APRs and origination fees), credit union loans (often with lower rates for members), secured loans …
Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit: What to Know Read More »
For your credit, debt consolidation is usually better. Consolidation — through a loan, a balance transfer, or a nonprofit debt management plan — pays your debts in full on a single schedule, often at a lower interest rate. It may cause a small, temporary dip, but on-time payments usually improve your credit over time. Debt …
Debt Settlement vs. Debt Consolidation: Which Is Better for Your Credit? Read More »
Both work — because both use the same process. Whether you do it yourself or hire a company, credit repair means reviewing your credit reports, disputing information that’s inaccurate, incomplete, unverifiable, or outdated, validating collections, and building positive history. DIY is free and works well if you have a few clear errors and the time …
DIY Credit Repair vs. Hiring a Credit Repair Company: Which Actually Works? Read More »
You can start rebuilding credit right after your bankruptcy discharge. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy can stay on your credit report for up to 10 years from the filing date, and a Chapter 13 for up to 7 years, but its impact fades as you add positive history. Within weeks of discharge, you can check your …
How Soon Can You Rebuild Credit After Bankruptcy Discharge? Read More »