Paying Down Your Credit Cards – Where to Begin

Posted on September 2, 2011 by admin

Getting into credit card debt is easy – just ask the millions of consumers already wallowing in it.  Getting back out of debt is the hard part, but fear not – it CAN be done.  All it takes is careful planning, a lot of discipline, and a little time, and you can live your life worry- and debt-free.  Here’s how:

What can you afford to pay?

This is the all-important first question you need to ask yourself before you set about coming up with a payment plan.  Figure out how much you have to pay off before your debts are wiped out, and how much you can afford to put down each month.

Start by gathering all of your monthly bills and pay stubs together, and use them to draft up a working monthly budget for yourself.  Once you have an idea of how much you make each month vs. how much you spend, you’ll have a better idea of how much you’ll be able to sock away for debt settlement each month.

Your best bets

There are basically 2 schools of thought as to the best method for paying off your credit card debts.

  1. Start with the lowest balance. This option has you paying your debts down from smallest to largest balance.  This is usually the easier method of the two for people to get behind, as it quickly produces noticeable results.  Once you see how quickly your smaller debts are falling by the wayside, you’re more easily encouraged to stick with your repayment plan.
  1. Start with the highest interest rate. This option makes more sense from a purely mathematical standpoint, but it can be difficult to stick with, as the payoffs aren’t as fast or as often as the lowest balance first method.  Paying off your higher interest cards makes sense because the longer you leave them unattended, the more interest you’ll accrue and have to pay off later.

What’s the best credit repair debt settlement method for me?

This is really a question only you can answer.  If you value immediate satisfaction, stick with paying your cards down starting with the lowest balance.  If you’d rather not be mired in interest payments for the next few years – and you aren’t easily deterred – start with the accounts with the highest interest rate.

 

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Understanding credit: The fundamentals

Posted on August 25, 2011 by admin

Knowledge is power- and so is a good credit score. But perhaps you needed a clean t-shirt those first weeks of college and couldn’t turn down the folks offering free shirts and a new credit card. Maybe you’ve fallen behind on your monthly payments. Or maybe, you’re seeking help with credit repair after you discovered a glaring mistake on your credit report. Regardless of the reason, you need to understand the ups and downs, ins and outs of credit. This will be the first of multiple posts breaking down the fundamentals of credit, that thing we all need yet remains so mysterious, so that you can use it to empower your future and reach your goals.

FICO? FICA? What?

If you’re thinking about gaining control over your credit rating, you’ve made the first step in doing so by seeking out more information and turning to CreditRatingEducation.com for help. But, you’ve probably heard of “FICO” at some point along the way, too.

The term “FICO” is actually an abbreviation for Fair Isaac Corporation, which is a publicly-traded corporation that uses sophisticated analytics and mathematical formulas to help financial services companies make complex decisions. In other words, engineer Bill Fair and mathematician Earl Isaac founded a company in 1956 that developed the formula that decides a person’s standard level of credit risk, their “creditworthiness,” or, the level to which a person is likely to repay or service their debts in a timely manner. This mathematical value is reflected in a FICO score that typically ranges from 300 to 850…and as you might suspect, if you have a high FICO score, the better credit you have, and, according to the FICO formula, it is predicted that you are more likely repay your debt and be health risk for a lending institution. This, in turn, means banks or lending institutions may lend you money more easily to say, buy a house, and- most importantly- you may receive lower interest rates and, subsequently, lower payments on those loans.

What’s next?

Next up, we’ll look at the various credit bureaus or credit agencies and some of the ways they calculate your FICO score so we can see how your credit activity impacts your credit rating. As we go along, you’ll be more empowered as a consumer to make the choices that strengthen your credit and clear the path to future success.

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Debt Settlement and Credit Repair

Posted on August 5, 2011 by admin

Debt settlement can be a legitimate way for a debt ridden consumer to pay off their debts for 50 cents on the dollar or less and become debt free. All of this assuming that they are doing business with a good company that has fully informed them of all the pros and cons.

One of the downsides of debt settlement or any settlement made with a creditor that involves paying less than the amount owed is that it will almost always result in that account reflecting negatively on your credit report. It will report one of the following ways as:
Settled for less than owed/agreed
Paid charge off
Simply settled account

All of these are bad and will carry a numbered negative code that could be 2 through 9. Anything other than 1, which means paid as agreed, is very bad.

So while debt settlement can get you out of debt, it destroys your credit. Even one negative account could drop your score 50 points, and multiple accounts could cost 200 plus points!

So you’ve done the hard stuff, you’re debt free, what now?

You need to fix your credit and a real expert in credit repair can remove over 50% of these negative accounts. That’s huge!  And it restores points immediately.
The big reason why credit repair is so effective for debt settlement clients is the fact that the creditors and collectors have been paid, so when they are challenged or disputed as to why this information is on your credit report, they have no interest in responding to you or the credit bureaus, and since they don’t respond by law the account must be deleted, removed, made to disappear, etc!
I have seen 80 percent removal of settled accounts, 80 percent is incredible!!

But don’t stop there; the next step is to boost that score even more by building guaranteed powerful, effective, score boosting credit lines. 30 percent of your score depends on available credit, that’s a lot and the right accounts can boost your score up to 50 points or more.

With the right guidance, credit repair could be the answer to finishing what you started to end up being debt free and have a great credit score.

Robby Allen, President of Your Credit Repair Coach

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What Our Credit Repair Software Can Do For You

Posted on September 8, 2011 by admin

  When you think about your credit score and how to improve it, no doubt at least one jingle or silly commercial comes to mind. The problem is, when you have been turned down for a simple loan or rejected for credit card approval, you are not likely to sing or laugh about it. If you are a do-it-yourself type of person, you will probably start researching online to find the best credit repair software. The internet offers a wealth of information from everything from “how to get your cat to use the toilet”..to “how to create your own fountain of youth.” However, when it comes to credit repair software, you may find yourself sucked into a vortex of marketing catch phrases such as..quick fix, rapid repair and even magic!

Now, if this was your gall bladder you were concerned about instead of your financial health, after learning everything you could about your symptoms, causes, etc. you wouldn’t download software and perform surgery on yourself…you would still go see your doctor – the expert you trust to give you the best advice.

Therefore, if you are truly serious about improving your credit rating, you should choose a company that offers state of the art credit repair software, in addition to assigning you your own personal credit repair expert or coach. This type of comprehensive credit repair program is now available through YourCreditRepairCoach.com.

Your Credit Repair Coach offers affordable, step-by-step, easy-to-follow credit repair software that is both consumer friendly and technologically advanced. So, you will still be able to do-it-yourself as well as have a credit repair expert available to you 24/7.  Your Credit Repair Coach understands the fact that not everyone is computer savvy. Trying to navigate any new software – especially credit repair software critically linked to your financial health – can be challenging. This is why their system includes one-on-one personal assistance via e-mail 24/7 or toll-free chat during normal business hours.

Diagnosis – bad credit score. Treatment – comprehensive state-of-the-art credit repair software and personal coach from Your Credit Repair Coach. Prognosis – Excellent credit scores, with a clean financial slate!

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