As I dropped my stepson off at school this morning and was driving home, I heard something very interesting on the radio.

It was a Finance expert talking about 3 easy tips that everyone can do to help increase their credit score, and surprisingly these tips can help pretty quickly.

This is what he had to say...

Tip #1.

The first thing you should is start paying your Balance off before the end of the month.

Every month your credit card issuer sends a credit report to the three major Credit Bureaus. Included on this report is your balance at the time of the report. It's possible this report gets sent before you have paid off your balance for the month.

If you get in the habit if running up large balances and then paying them off at the end of the month, you may still be damaging your credit without even realizing it.

The better option would be to pay off your balance several times during the month, especially if it starts to get high.

Tip #2.

The second tip was for people to apply for a larger credit limit. That may sound a bit counter intuitive at first, but the lower the percentage of your available credit you are using each month, the better it looks to creditors.

Once you get above the 30% mark, it starts to work against your credit score.

If you have a good history of paying your balance on time, issuers should be open to the idea of increasing your credit limit. Without changing any of your behaviors, a simple phone call could drastically help your credit score.

Just keep in mind that a request for a credit limit increase could trigger a "hard pull" of your credit report, which may in fact ding your credit score if you don't have a long history. In this instance, ask the card issuer if a hard pull will be triggered, and if it will be ask for a smaller increase. Often a smaller increase forgoes a hard pull.

Tip #3.

Get yourself added as an authorized user on someone else's credit card that has a good credit history. Call up your parents, grandparents, uncle, basically anyone that is in your family that has a good credit history.

Just by getting yourself added as an authorized user to someone with a good credit history, helps show a history of good credit use. Some parents have been recommended to add their children when they are in high school in order to help them establish credit.

Just make sure you are only getting added to someone's card that actually does have a good credit history!

I thought these were some great quick tips that were worth sharing. Hopefully they can help you out some. However, it really got me wondering...

What goes into a credit score exactly anyways?

If we understand how a credit score is calculated perhaps we can better understand how to keep ours in tip top shape. For that I did a little digging and this is what I was able to come up with:

1. Your Payment History - Make sure you are paying your bills on time. This accounts for about 35% of your entire Credit Score.

2. The total amount owed - Make sure you are using less than 30% of all available credit. This accounts for about 30% of your score.

3. Credit History - The longer you are able to show responsible credit use, the better. This accounts for 15% of your score.

4. New Credit - The number of recently opened accounts and credit inquires. This accounts for 10% of your score.

5. Types of Credit - Mortgages, car loans, or credit cards. This accounts for 10% of your score.

Ideally you want a score above 760. Anything north of 760 is considered excellent credit.

As we can see, by far the two biggest credit score determinants are; paying your bills on time, and making sure you don't use more than 30% of all available credit. If you can do those two things you are well on your way to keeping a good credit score!

Stay above 760 my friends!

Sources:

https://blog.mint.com/credit/3-easy-ways-to-improve-your-credit-score0530/

Image Sources:

https://blog.seedly.sg/3-simple-tips-to-help-you-improve-your-credit-score/