Whatever we do, we should take steps to protect our personal credit. Whether we are buying a new car or applying for mortgage, it is best to properly balance our decisions to maintain good credit score. In general, credit scores allow us to open up many options financially. They allow us to access better deals and get lower interest rates. Obviously, what we do is entirely up to us, but we should be aware that flexibility is key. Good scores make it possible for us to work a deal. There are things we should do before we try to maintain our score. One obvious thing to do is pay our bills on time. It is time to fully understand about the importance of the 3-digit score and how it could affect our life. Whatever we do, we should make sure that we pay our bills on time, although we are just paying the minimum. It should be noted that the mortgage company submits their reports once a month to credit bureau. We will be affected a significant hit on our score if fail to pay bills on time.

Our points can be subtracted by 100 points if we are 30 days late, but some providers report to credit bureaus sooner. If we miss one payment due to specific reasons, we should try to catch up immediately and pay bills for the next month sooner than usual, even if it means that we will withdraw some money from savings account. In this case, we should be able to use our cards wisely and we should be able to show credit bureaus that we are paying attention in balancing our cards. We should be aware of some thresholds, as an example, balance must be less than 33 percent of the current limit. In general, using credit card is a financially good thing to do, because it could help us increase credit score. If we handle our credit card debt responsibly, we could actually steadily increase our credit score and show credit bureaus that we are able to manage our finances properly. In fact, some people who don’t really need credit cards use them with the primary objectives of improving scores.

Paying off our credit card debt each month should be considered as the best case scenario. We could maintain a small balance within specified limits if we want. However, we should know that the sooner we have credit card the better. Any credit card used for less than eight years is considered new and credit bureaus assign more points if we are long-time credit card users. We need to take advantage of any zero percent offers and low interest credit cards should make sense for us. Whatever we do, we should have and use one credit card at a time to simulate the smooth running of our financial activities. Other things that will significantly reduce our credit scores are collections, tax liens and bankruptcy. These items could stay for more than 7 years in our credit report!