Hello! Today I’ve partnered with Lexington Law to share practical tips and strategies for how to increase your credit score.
Regularly checking your credit score and credit report is an important habit. I check mine several times a year and currently have an excellent score of 822. Monitoring your credit helps you spot mistakes or suspicious activity that could hurt your score and gives you the information needed to improve your financial standing.
Surprisingly, many people don’t know their credit score or what it represents. If you want to increase your credit score, it helps to start by understanding what a credit score is and why it matters.
Your credit score is a three-digit number that represents your creditworthiness to lenders, landlords, insurers, and sometimes employers. It is a quick indicator of how likely you are to repay borrowed money and how risky you appear to those making lending or insurance decisions.
There are three major credit bureaus — TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian — and each may report slightly different scores because they rely on the information they have about you. That means your credit history and score can vary somewhat across the bureaus.
Your credit score affects many financial areas: the interest rate you pay on a car loan, mortgage approvals and rates when buying a home, rental applications, job background checks, car insurance premiums, and more. Because it plays such a significant role, improving your credit score can meaningfully affect your finances.
Although it’s easy to damage your credit, it’s also possible to raise your score with consistent, targeted actions. Below are practical, proven strategies you can use to increase your credit score.
How to increase your credit score:
Improving your credit score doesn’t have to be complicated. Follow these key practices to build and protect your credit over time.
Effective steps to increase your credit score:
- Pay all bills and accounts on time. Payment history is one of the largest factors in most credit scoring models. If you have trouble remembering due dates, set calendar reminders or use automatic payments to avoid missed payments.
- Check your credit report regularly. Reviewing your reports helps you find errors, identity theft, or outdated negative information that could be dragging your score down. Dispute inaccuracies promptly with the credit bureaus.
- Keep balances and credit utilization low. Credit utilization — the percentage of available credit you’re using — is another important factor. Aim to keep balances below about 20% of your credit limits. For example, on a $1,000 limit, try to keep the balance under $200.
- Consider requesting a credit limit increase. A higher limit, if managed responsibly, can lower your utilization rate and help your score. Do not request an increase if you’re likely to use the added available credit to accumulate debt.
- Pay down balances before they are reported. Timing payments so balances are low when the issuer reports to the bureaus can reduce reported utilization and help your score.
- Keep older accounts open when it makes sense. The length of your credit history influences your score, so keeping long-standing, no-fee accounts open can be beneficial. However, if an account has a high annual fee or tempts you to overspend, closing it might be the wiser choice.
If you prefer professional help with credit repair, Lexington Law is a well-known firm that assists people with improving credit reports. They can review reports and work to remove or challenge negative items such as collection accounts, late payments, judgments, bankruptcies, and foreclosures when appropriate.
Many clients have reported positive results after working with Lexington Law. Here are a couple of representative testimonials shared by clients:
- “I got an updated copy of my Experian Credit Report today and was so happy I started jumping up and down. They deleted six out of nine negative entries in less than two months — now that’s service. I can’t wait to see the negative entries fall off my other reports as well!” — A., Lexington client
- “Your service is great! My Experian credit report is cleaned up! The other two bureaus are almost clean too. The past six months have been great: I leased a $40,000 car easily and obtained new credit cards with high limits and favorable rates. I’ve spent under $500 on your service — it has been worth every penny.” — B.G., Lexington client
When you contact Lexington Law, they typically offer:
- A free personalized credit consultation
- Free access to a TransUnion report summary
- A free credit report review with recommended solutions
What tips do you have for increasing your credit score? What is your current credit score?