Credit Repair

Category List For: Credit Repair

« Previous Entries

Credit Bureaus

Maybe you are looking into a mortgage or taking out a car loan. It may be as simple as filling out an application for a department store credit card but you run into this issue of your “credit rating”. Who decides your credit rating? Who tells the bank or dealership or merchant that you are or aren’t a good credit risk?

Credit bureaus, that’s who. In the United States there are three major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax and Transunion. They aren’t run by the government, they are private, for-profit businesses that collect financial information on you and use that information to give you a credit score. The creditor (bank, lender, store etc.) then decides whether to extend you the line of credit based on this score and at what interest rate. Read More…

Reduce Debt

Financial planners are famous for making “Pay yourself first” the first rule of personal financial planning. Although planners and credit counselors say a lot of things about a lot of subjects after that, a good argument can be made that the second rule of personal financial planning is “Reduce debt.”

There is no question that reducing debt is one of the first few things a credit counselor, a financial planner or the real estate agent fighting to qualify you for a home loan will tell you to do. It is such a truism of personal finance that it will be stated about a dozen different ways so you’ll get the point – get out of debt, reduce debt, pay off your debt, cut up your credit cards, etc. Read More…

Bankruptcy

The word itself is scary and still a bit mysterious. Bankruptcy– it sounds so final, and has such negative baggage attached to it, that even people who once knew better have forgotten that recovery from bankruptcy is specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution, of course, doesn’t give the what’s and the how’s of bankruptcy law, but does state that the government will establish procedures to bring American citizens relief from financial failure

. The laws have changed a number of times since the Constitution was ratified in 1787, and the last major revision took effect on October 17, 2005. Read More…

When it comes to credit repair the best way to manage it isn’t necessarily through hired help, but by taking responsibility for your finances and changing the way you manage your money. There are many factors associated with doing this, but none more important than taking responsibility for your debits and deciding once and for all to make the changes necessary for credit repair and to save your credit score.

After accepting financial responsibility for the state of your debts the next thing you must do is alter your lifestyle by way of your expenses. You need to start budgeting in order to finally achieve your goal of total credit repair. This will take discipline and interfere with your ability to feign a lavish lifestyle. Know this ahead of time so you can emotionally cope with the fact that you are making financial changes for life in order to avoid being in debt in the future and living a life post credit repair. Read More…

Credit Counseling

According to ads on television credit counseling can magically mend your financial woes, but is this a reliable claim? Credit counseling companies claim that they can makes your budget bloopers go away while fixing your credit and managing those terribly out of control monthly payments.

Initially, they sound like a magical fix for a practical problem countless amounts of Americans are going through, but at second glance credit counseling may pose more than merely solutions. The wise consumer will review their options before finally turning to the aid of credit counseling. Read More…

Bad Credit

Welcome to the bad credit school of hard knocks. Once you achieve the substandard of bad credit you will become bombarded with information: flyers, e-mails, and snail mail. Before you turn to their services to act as a magical genie ordered to clean up your financial mess you should take time to review the fact that there is no bad credit miracle that can wipe out your financial woes. On the contrary, fixing your bad credit starts when you decide to change the way you’re managing your money.

Oftentimes, outsourcing your financial problems results in costly and hidden fees. Moreover, it lacks the ability to teach you how to aptly manage your finances and learn to responsibly use credit. Quick fix schemes are typically just that: quick fixes that result in leaving you with long term bad credit. Your credit history is important and mending your current bad credit is not as impossible as you might think. To start, after you have been denied credit because of your bad credit you can request the details of your credit record from the credit bureau to verify that the information about your bad credit is correct. You are afforded this opportunity by law via the Fair Credit Report Act and have thirty days to do so after being turned down for credit or a loan. Read More…

Financial Freedom

The bad news is there is no quick road to financial freedom beyond the lottery or Uncle Moneybags leaving a trust fund for you. Let’s call these scenarios unlikely. The good news is that financial freedom can be had by anyone with an income. It takes work and discipline but you can do it, even if you are caught in credit crunch and accounts are being sent to collection agencies. You can make changes that will let you achieve the goals you want to.

First thing to do is make a budget. Make it a realistic one. If you stop for McDonalds or Starbucks three times a week, include in the budget. Really pay attention to where your money goes. You’ll be surprised how many places you can cut expenses and turn that money into savings. The biggest expense that serves you no purpose whatsoever is credit card interest and fees. Read More…

Bankruptcy Attorneys

Having a bankruptcy attorney has become more important than ever with recent changes to bankruptcy laws. A bankruptcy attorney specializes in all aspects of bankruptcy law, and can be of tremendous aid to a client hoping to file for bankruptcy. A good attorney will make sure a client declares the right kind of bankruptcy, and only when absolutely necessary, helping clients navigate the grueling process of debt management with as little pain as possible.

There are five different types, or “chapters” of bankruptcy. The two most common declared by individuals are Chapter 7 liquidation, and Chapter 13 reorganization. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is a process where a debtor’s non-exempt assets are “liquidated” (i.e., sold for money) and those proceeds are then turned over to creditors to pay off debt. Once a debtor’s assets have been totally liquidated, his debt is generally deemed cleared and he can begin the climb back to financial stability. Read More…

Credit Score

Most of us have heard of credit scores, but what do they mean? A credit score is a number that represents the statistical likelihood of an individual to repay or to be delinquent on a loan. This number is based on the individual’s past credit history, and it is what banks and creditors look at when deciding whether or not to extend an individual a line of credit.

In most cases, your credit score is your FICO number. FICO stands for Fair, Isaac and Company, and it is usually the standard model people use. But there are three other major credit bureaus that also have rankings. Equifax has its BEACON score. Experian has its Experian/Fair Isaac Risk Model, and TransUnion has its EMPIRICA score. Also, other organizations may use their own information along with one or more of these scoring models. For the rest of this article when we talk about credit score, we will be talking about the FICO credit score. Read More…

Credit Check

A credit check is the method in which a prospective lender or renter reviews the history of a person’s finances in order to determine how much risk is involved in lending that person money or leasing them a living space.

A lending institution that wants to check credit will usually look up a personís credit report. The report will show the financial history of the borrower and also their credit score. A credit score is a number, found by statistical analysis, that determines the likelihood of repayment by the borrower. Read More…