People always tell you it’s good to move on from the past and start again where you can. The trouble with that is that sometimes the past holds on tightly and it can be hard to shake off. Being held back by the past is never a good thing, and if your past mistakes have caused you to owe money and have bad credit, it’s going to affect your future whether you want it to or not. Bad mistakes as a young person with money are common; everyone has a time in their life they regret and getting into debts and burying your head in the sand is the best example of past mistakes that will eventually catch up.
Whether you want to buy a house or own a business, your credit score will be affected. Most people aren’t educated enough financially to know that their credit can have a direct hit on their future mortgage applications and business borrowing decisions, and you can learn more about what loans you could get with a bad credit rating simply by doing some decent research. If you want to be able to make a success of your future, you have to clean up the past so that it doesn’t impact the choices you make. You can live with a bad credit score, but if you don’t have to, then there are ways to get some help! There is no one solution to fixing bad credit, but that’s not bad news, as there are plenty of ways that you can repair your credit and make a start on fixing the numbers that could be stopping you from living your life the way that you want to.
- Open The Box. Log into your credit reports and start making a list of all the creditors and owed amounts that you have. You can’t start to repair your credit background unless you know what it is you owe and to whom. You are entitled by law to free credit reports each year from these three credit bureaus, so make sure you request them.
- Check For Mistakes. Sometimes, you may come across errors on your credit report that you are unaware of. There could be addresses registered to your name that you’ve never lived in. there could be owed amounts that are incorrect because you’ve actually paid the debt but the creditor hasn’t lifted the black mark off your record. These types of mistakes can be easily rectified and have an instant effect on your report.
- Tackle Head On. Tackling accounts that are past due is crucial to the health of your credit report. Work out how much money you can afford to pay each creditor and call them to make an offer. You may find that some creditors are willing to take a greatly reduced payment and then write off the remainder of the debt – which is excellent for you!
Bad credit doesn’t have to hold you back from getting your business off the ground or getting your mortgage application approved. Owning your past mistakes is the first step to getting you where you need to be.