What are you doing to help secure your financial future? About 2 years ago we started really paying attention to our credit when we realized that we didn't have the right credit to purchase a home. Believe it or not, there are so many more reasons than "you have bad credit" that keeps you from making those big purchases.
There were so many things that we needed to do that I didn't understand what we needed to do because I didn't understand the terms they were using. In this post, I want to share some easy to understand ways to get the credit score you want to make the purchases that you want to make.
Have you ever heard any of these?
- Not enough credit.
- Too low of a credit score.
- Not a long enough credit history.
- Too many open accounts.
The lists go on and on. I want to share a few options I have found that can improve your credit so you can eventually make those big purchases that will impact your family for years to come. Everyone's credit is a personal journey. Your big purchase may be completely different than ours. For us, it's the home purchase. We want to have a permanent place that our kids and grandkids can come and make memories with us.
What to do with too many accounts
Consolidated credit accounts are a great way to go. You can combine all of your accounts to make one lower monthly payment to give you more options.
How does Ladder Advisors Help?
Ladder Associates specialize in prioritizing what clients need by offering a single monthly payment with low-interest rates. Lower interest rates have a good chance of ultimately giving you a lower monthly payment than you are currently experiencing so that way you have more cash on hand.
More cash on hand means you don't have to count on those credit cards for the smaller purchases to get what you need right now. You will be able to afford that tank of gas that you usually charge until payday. Believe it or not, that causes a domino effect for you and your credit. Not charging the little purchases now means less of a finance charge later.
What do I do if I have no credit?
There are plenty of services out there for helping individuals establish credit. This is one that we did for the past 2 years. We chose a prepaid loan. It's a form of self lending. Every month we make a small payment toward our prepaid loan, we chose direct payment so it shows consistent payments without error. At the end of the 12 month period, we get all of the money back in one lump sum minus the institution charge.
That method has done a lot for us. Not only has it helped improve our credit it showed us that we can afford to save money when we thought that we couldn't. It gives us an account with proven length and a good payment schedule. On top of that, it has given us a little chunk of cash that we can use towards whatever we want. Last year we went on a little vacation, it was fun! It was awesome knowing that we saved the money for a vacation, we had never done that before.
How do I get a long term credit line?
One thing I didn't quite understand was not having a long enough credit history and how would I fix that in 6-12 months? I felt like I had several accounts that were open for a long time but they were the wrong kinds of accounts. They were the kinds of accounts that didn't report if I was current on my account they only reported to the credit agency if I didn't stay current on my payments. I never paid attention to my financial habits until I realized they were all bad habits.
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