When it comes to your financial life, one of the most important things you can do is to keep a great credit score. Whether you are building your credit or re-establishing your credit after problems, you’ll want to take measures to keep your credit looking good. So, if you want a great credit score, the following are a few tips that can help you keep the best possible score.

Tip #1 – Pay On Time!

One of the most important tips that will help you keep a great credit score is to always pay on time. Do your very best to pay all your bills on time. You see, if you have payments that are late, collections against you, or even bankruptcies, these can make a huge negative impact on your credit score. While you may be a few days late from time to time, you should especially avoid being more than 30 days late on any type of bill.

Tip #2 – Check Your Credit Report on a Regular Basis

You should always take the time to check your credit report a couple times a year. In some cases, there may be some inaccurate information on your report that is lowering your credit score. So, make sure that you check the report and work to get rid of any inaccuracies if there are any on the report. You can get a free report once a year from all of the credit reporting agencies; however, any more than that will cost you.

Tip #3 – Work to Resolve Problems

Even if you do happen to have some credit problems in the future, it is important that you work on resolving those problems instead of ignoring them. If you just ignore the problem, it will probably turn into a bigger problem. However, if you work to resolve the problem, you’ll be more likely to keep a credit score that looks good.

Tip #4 – Avoid Too Much Debt

Even if you have a lot of available credit, you should avoid having too much debt. In fact, it is best to only use less than 50% of the credit that is available to you if you want your credit score to look good. If you have your credit almost maxed out, this will lower your score. However, if you only use about 20-40% of your available credit, you’ll have a much better credit score and it will be easier to get more credit, such as important loans and mortgages.

Tip #5 – Time Helps

Sure, there may have been problems in the past, but time can do a lot for your credit score. Consider keeping an old account open to show a longer time period of having active credit. Also, work to keep up a long history of paying all of your bills on time as well. Over time these things can all really help you keep a great credit score.

So, if you are in pursuit of a great credit score, keep each of these tips in mind. Use them and you’ll be sure to keep a credit score that is looking excellent.

© 2008 Ethical Credit Repair Alliance
http://www.ecraonline.org

Tips – How do you survive a recession?

Horrible as it is, economic recession can happen and happens without any warning and if you are not prepared you are likely to end up burning your fingers very badly. The past economic upheaval for example, has caught many people completely unprepared and the bankruptcy and loan payment defaults shot up to an unprecedented high in the USA.

How do you survive an outside financial disaster of such a magnitude?

Your answer on how to survive recession is clearly stated here. You work hard and you save hard. Do not stop at only saving; there are other things that would need to consider and implement to make yourself recession proof.

1.Credit repair – most people feel that credit repair is something that needs to be done only when you are in financial trouble. The truth is that credit repair is something that needs to be done at regular intervals, say yearly or even every six months. Why? This is because according to the available statistics, more than 90 per cent credit records available with the three accredited credit bureaus have mistakes and erroneous remarks posted in them, which directly affect your credit score. These erroneous remarks would in most cases stay on the record forever, or until they are discovered, disputed and removed. Therefore, establishing a working rapport with a good credit repair company would be a good way to defend yourself in times of recession when every point in your score counts.

2.Turning losses into profit - find yourself a business or occupation that is recession proof. There are plenty of examples out there, and you have to be very diligent to identify such opportunities. One such example is credit repair business, which actually flourishes maximum during an economic recession. Becoming a credit repair consultant or credit repair agency would be a great way to earn money part-time (or full time) and ensure that you would never worry about your income, no matter what the position of the economy is.

3.SOS measures - You want to survive recession you need to be versatile in both your thinking and abilities. Often economic trouble results in mass layoffs. Be valuable to your company by acquiring extra qualifications and skills whereby they would consider you too valuable an asset to loose. Alternatively, you could use such skills to set up your business.

4.Go to the right place – how do you ensure that you use the right affiliation when you chose this business? How do you ensure you identify an ethical credit repair company? Ethical Credit Repair Association (ECRA) has been formed specifically with this goal in mind: to ensure that credit repair company work within the given legal frame and at the same time keeps the interests of the customers paramount.

5.Constantly build your network – a peer professional network is an excellent insurance that you would always have a job, provided you take the trouble to stay fresh in the minds of the networked members. Not only you would know much ahead about any plans of layoffs, you would also be able to find you next job through this network as well.

5. Always have a contingency plan – it so happens that the best laid out plans fails at times. The wise have an alternative in hand. Whatever you do, business or service, ensure that you have something to fall back upon in the worst case scenario.

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