I messed up my credit rating but still needed a credit card

This is how I helped myself improve my credit rating and still had a low interest rate card.

Over the past number of years I have said this to myself a few times. It is hard to dig yourself out of a bad credit rating and can take anywhere up to a year.

What I found in the past is to work on lowering my expenses and to treat credit with a little more respect. Once I changed my spending habits, I could start to pay my bills on time.

This is the first crucial step and by itself can raise your credit score. What I did then was tried to save at least thirty dollars at the end of the month to increase my payment. With the amount of money I owed it was going to take a lot longer than I planned.

At the end of six months I did manage to pay off an extra 150 dollars and did in fact raise my credit rating. It didn't go up that much but it went up and that is the main thing.

I did use this credit repair service because I saw that I had a charge off on my account that never happened. They wouldn't take it off and so it was affecting my credit rating. I finally had to get help and Lexington law helped me fix it.

I still needed two credit cards one I made extra payments on and the other I only kept for emergencies. I used this one only three times and made sure I paid it off in full at the end of the month.

This I believe also helped me. The two cards I have now are the imagine which is specifically designed around bad credit. I applied for the imagine credit card as my best choice, but you may like the orchard bank cards for your situation.

If you are going to apply for any of these cards go with the imagine card first. Why? Because the chase and discover cards have more rewards, any credit card that offers good cash back rewards and low interest at the same time also requires people to have a better credit rating.

I waited 6 months and made sure I was never even a day late in making a payment and when by balance was at 0, I then applied for a chase mastercard that had lower interest rates and a good points program.

Steps to saving money so you can pay off your card faster or at least make your payments on time

This is kind of your own personal worksheet for improving your credit

1. Apply for a lower interest rate credit card that is for people with bad credit and reports to the three major credit bureaus.

2. Take a serious look at what you are using your credit card for. If it is used in restaurants (stop it) or at least limit yourself to once a month. Bag your lunch to work or start cooking at home.

3. Use your card only if it is an emergency, for instance it's a day away from payday and you need gas to get to work or need to shop for food, this would be ok. Use it for gas only if you can't walk or use public transportation.

4. Before you decide if you need to use it " tell yourself this is not free it is a loan". Saying this will help you change your attitude towards credit.

5. At the end of the month actually read your credit card statement and see where your money went and if you could have cut anything out. This requires you to be brutally honest with yourself.

6. Be creative in your thinking in how to save money. This can be simple things like washing your car by hand instead of using a car wash. Bagging your lunch, walking to the store, using your left over's in a casserole the next day (you will be surprised how that alone can cut down on your food bills). Shop at second hand stores for clothing. If you now your clothing labels can get some pretty fashionable things. Repair items that you can do yourself, if you bought a how-to-book.

7. Get a copy of your credit history and see what your creditors are reporting about you. You may find there are errors and your current bad credit rating is unjustified.

8. Look at your other finances. If you have more than one loan, talk to your banker about a debt consolidation loan.

9. If you get it in your area watch the Suze Orman TV finance show as often as you can or at the least go to here website www.suzeorman.com/
 

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