Have Bad Credit?
It’s no secret that nowadays having a good credit score helps with everything from getting approved for loans, to getting accepted to rent an apartment, to purchasing a home or a vehicle. It’s absolutely crucial to increase your credit score as high as possible to save as much money or even to have access to purchasing large items.
If you happen to currently have bad credit, no worries! We’ve all been there, you just need to take the right steps to quickly increase your credit score so that when you need to use your credit it’s available for you.
Not only will you find here the 3 best credit cards for bad credit below, but also you will find a complete guide on the steps to take if you want to build or rebuild your credit if you have never done so before.
The steps listed below have helped me increase my credit score to be over 775. Sometimes it’s around 810, sometimes it dips but overall it’s always higher than 775 which allows me to basically be able to get any credit card, car loan or mortgage at the lowest possible rates. As well as recently I got an apartment and because of my credit score they only asked for a $500 deposit, before when I had a credit score of around 650 they asked for over $2000 as deposit. I’ve actually heard some people getting denied for an apartment because their scores were terrible.
3 Credit Cards To Improve Credit History
How does having a bad credit card help build credit? When you use a credit card each month the bank reports the balance, how much you owe and a few other details. The credit bureaus put this information together and it starts building your credit history.
Really the goal is to show that you know how to use a credit card responsibly and you always pay back that money on time. So each month use a portion of the total available credit on the credit card. Once the bill comes, pay it off (so that you don’t get charged interest or any fees). That way your credit is being used and you are building your reputation which will enable you increase your credit score.
Bad credit credit cards or Secure credit cards many of them do require a deposit to start. So you can deposit around $100 or more to start building your credit, at the end of the year you can get that money back and it becomes a regular credit card (One of the best ways to start if you are serious about building your credit).
1. Milestone Mastercard Gold Credit Card
This is our number 1 option for people that want to start building or rebuilding their credit. It’s great because it reports to all 3 credit bureaus so you start building credit with all 3 by simply using this card.
Pre-qualification does not impact your credit score (Important since you’re looking to increase your score). Card is protected with Fraud protection just in case it gets lost or stolen. Also, it’s great because they don’t require a security deposit. Just so you know most bad credit credit cards DO require a deposit which is why this one is great!
Learn More About The Milestone Mastercard Gold Card To Start Rebuilding Your Credit.
2. Indigo Mastercard Credit Card
The second best credit card to start building your credit will have to be Indigo Mastercard Platinum Credit Card, the reason why is because they don’t require credit at all to start.
It also has no yearly fees. So you can get up to 2% cash back on how much you spend with it. It also reports to all 3 of the credit bureaus which helps you build credit everywhere which is great. Definitely our #2 card to start out with. It’s still definitely a great credit card to start building your credit.
Indigo® Platinum Mastercard®
Learn More About The Indigo Mastercard Credit Card And Apply To Start Rebuilding Your Credit
3. Your Perfect Credit Card
This might not make sense in the beginning but stick with me. Depending on your credit you can qualify for certain credit cards, so instead of going around playing the guessing game and apply for all types of credit cards (which can further hurt your credit) you can use CardMatch. The way it works is fill out a form that will check (without hurting your credit) what are the best credit card offers that you can qualify for. This way you can be much more sure that the credit card you apply for will end up accepting you.
You can see the partners that participate with CreditMatch to help you find the ideal credit card for you below:
Learn More Finding The Idea Credit Card And Apply To Start Rebuilding Your Credit
3 Steps To Repair Your Credit Quickly
Below you can find the steps to repair your credit quickly. It’s a guide to help you find the top problems in your credit history and solve them.
1. Too Much Debt?
One of the fastest ways to increase your credit score and help you pay off debt quickly is to get a balance transfer or debt consolidation loan which will help you pay off your credit cards faster by lowering the interest you pay on them, as well as put all your debt into one loan instead of all over the place. A debt consolidation loan can help you pay much less than the average credit card which is around 19%, a debt consolidation loan can be much lower so it can easily be half or more in interest savings which can be equal to thousands of dollars depending on how much you owe.
Click Here To Start Saving On Your Interest Rate.
If you’re serious about your credit this is the perfect guide for you. I used to have terrible credit and these are the steps that I followed to get it around 800 credit score. It will help you not only with your credit score but manage your debt and be responsible with your finances.
2. Solve Errors In Your Credit Reports
A very normal thing to happen is for credit bureaus to have wrong information or outdated information on your credit reports which can lead to you having lower credit scores. So when you receive your credit scores on the previous step, check them very thoroughly. If there is any information that is incorrect or outdated it should definitely be removed by the credit bureaus.
By law they have to remove it. The problem is that it can actually be complicated to get them to remove any errors on your credit score. For that reason I recommend you use a service like Lexington Law. They are a law firm that helps you remove incorrect information from your credit report by using the proper legal ways to force Credit bureaus to remove the errors on your credit reports to increase your credit score.
Click Here to Start Solving Errors On Your Credit Reports
3. Increase Your Available Credit
A very big part that impacts your credit is how much credit you have available and how much of it you are using. Let’s say you have $1000 credit available and you owe $500 of those then your credit utilization rate is about 50%. You want to be around 20% of your credit utilization rate.
Why is this important? Banks and lending institutions use this number to let them know if you use too much credit. When people use up all of their credit or most of it, many times they end up falling behind on payments or not able to pay it. That’s why it matters to them.
If you are able to increase your available credit by getting more credit cards it helps so that if you owe those same $500 but now you have $2000 in available credit then now you only owe 25% of your total available credit which will look much better to banks.
What should you do to increase your available credit? Apply for another credit card from a different bank. First, get approved, then your credit utilization rate will go down. In addition, don’t use up the credit on the new credit card. From there, you should see an increase in score soon enough. As a result of not getting approved for a normal credit card, then the next step is to get a secured credit card from the list we have above.
