t’s officially the holiday shopping season and we’ve supposedly lost all self control over our finances until the end of 2017, when we’ll find magically find it. The holidays are supposed to represent a time of family, joy, and giving – or at least that is what the movies tell us. However, for a lot of Americans the holidays have also come to represent a time for overspending, financial stress, and credit score damage.
There is no shortage of information (some of it good, some of it bad) on the many different strategies and techniques you can use to attempt to improve your credit. Yet when it comes to earning and sustaining good credit sometimes knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what you should be doing. And some mistakes aren’t easily reversed.
When it comes to credit card debt, your best bet is to always pay your balances off in full each month. That way the interest rate becomes irrelevant. However, this smart advice may not be particularly helpful or realistic at this moment if you are already faced with a pile of unpaid credit card debt.
Even if you are unsure about the behind the scenes mechanics, you probably have at least a basic understanding about how credit scores work. You likely know, for example, that paying your bills on time is an important part of earning and maintaining good credit scores. You likely also understand that negative events such as late payments, bankruptcy, foreclosures, and collection accounts can hurt your credit scores.
The subject of credit scores can be genuinely frustrating for a lot of consumers. You know that your credit scores matter. You know that they can either open or close doors to opportunities for you and your family. However, you may not feel like you really understand the rules of credit scoring.