5 Tips to Establishing Good Credit

 

Just like a person’s appearance can reflect their personality, a person’s credit score can give insights into the financial patterns of a person’s life. A credit history shows one’s financial reliability. The importance of establishing credit is undeniable as it opens new ways to receive loans with favorable interest rates. The following tips can help build a good credit history.

 

1. Spend Money Wisely
One of the major factors that a lender looks at to find out a person’s credibility is his or her sense of cash utilization. It is a good habit to keep one’s spending under control. In order to achieve good credit, a person must prove he or she is capable of using money the right way. Credit cards have limits, but don’t attempt to reach the limit if you think you won’t be able to pay back the entire amount once the bill arrives. This casts a negative impact on one’s credit score. The best strategy is to spend less than half of your credit card limit.

 

2. One Card Is Enough
Securing a large number of credit cards and having the ability to spend as much as you like seems amazing, but it can lead a person into unmanageable debt. No one wants debt, so a simple strategy when you are trying to establish credit is to limit the number of credit cards, possibly to only one. One card is easier to manage and can help avoid overspending.

 

3. Make Full Payments
Another realistic plan to establish credit is to pay off the full amount as soon as bills are received. If a person has a record of fulfilling commitments as expected, it makes them more likely to receive loans in the future. Making full payments can be evidence of a person’s reliability.

 

4. Timely Payments
If a full payment cannot be made, it is important to at least make minimum payments on time. Although not every monthly payment is present on a person’s credit report, that doesn’t mean timely payments don’t count. Late payments might be conveyed by the creditors to the bureaus responsible for establishing the credit score, which can consequently cast a negative effect on a person’s credit.

 

5. Obtain a Secured Credit Card
A secured credit card is associated with an account. For this kind of credit card, a person deposits a specified amount of money into that account. When the credit expenditure of a person exceeds the limit, the creditor refers to that account for a repayment. Once the history of regular repayments has been established, then a person can switch to a regular credit card while taking care of the repayments in the same manner.

Here at First South Financial we understand that sometimes starting a credit history or rebuilding one can have it's own set of challenges. That's why we developed our Fresh Start Saver Loan and Fresh Start Credit Card programs. These programs are designed to help you get your credit history on the right track! If you'd like to discuss your options, please call us at 901.380.7400 or stop by any of our banking centers today!