Prepping Your Credit Score for the Golden Years

by admin on December 13, 2011

Retiring with a good credit score can make living out the rest of your days completely carefree, allowing you to tackle larger expenses and loans with relative ease.

If you’ve been slacking on maintaining a good credit rating, however, your retirement may not resemble the golden age you were led to believe it would.  To help prepare your credit for retirement (no matter how close or far you are to punching the time clock one last time), here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Keep the debts down

If you’ve got too many debts, you’re already doing yourself a major disservice on the road to retirement readiness.

Having too much debt on your credit report shows a poor utilization of your debt-to-income ratio, and since how you use your available credit makes up a whopping 30% of your overall credit score, having this blemish show up in your history can make easy-living no easy feat.

Take the time to reduce your spending as much as possible by refocusing the money you once used to fuel your credit card debts into a retirement savings account.

Review your insurance needs

If you know you’re going to need to make changes to any insurance policies you have in your name (such as home, auto, or life), make sure you make the changes while you’re still a part of the workforce.

Remember that insurers give the best rates to consumers with the best credit scores, so get to work on improving your credit scores while you’re still getting a paycheck.

Lower interest rates

Another benefit to keeping the amount of debt you may have down to a minimum is being able to apply for better interest rates on any loans or large purchases you might be making.  Just think about how great it’ll be to be able to take out a loan without paying back twice as much in interest.

Again, the better you’re able to handle your credit utilization ratio, the easier this will be to accomplish.

Don’t stop checking your credit reports

If you’re diligent about checking your credit reports at least once a year, you’ll want to keep at it even after you retire.

You’ll especially want to stay on top of your credit information if you plan to travel a lot, as retirees are at greater risk for fraud and identity theft than the rest of us worker drones.

Want a leg up?  Start preparing for retirement now!

For those of you nowhere near retirement age, but want to start preparing now so you’ll live like a king later, having a good credit score can seriously impact the type of job you’ll be able to land.

Many employers feel that your ability to handle credit also reflects your job performance and how readily you’re able to handle responsibilities financial and otherwise.  Plus, having a higher paying job means you’ll be able to sock more money than usual away for retirement or paying off debts.

Keep these tips in mind whenever your mind starts wandering down the “Where will I be in 10+ years?” path, and you’ll have saved yourself some major financial headaches when you’re ready to kick up your heels on the beach till the sun goes down.

Need some help getting your credit up to par?  Check out our credit repair reviews — starting with a review of My Credit Group.

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Why It’s Better to Validate Your Debts

by admin on December 1, 2011

People looking for ways to clean up their credit reports sometimes turn to credit repair services because they promise to dispute your bad credit and have it taken care of for you in no time.  What a lot of them don’t realize is that many of these services will simply take your money and dispute every negative account in your profile, in the hopes that one of them might fall off.

As you can imagine, this isn’t exactly the best way to go about improving your credit score.  Disputing every account on your credit report not only is a waste of time (unless the account you’re disputing is actually inaccurate), and in some cases can land you in a world of trouble.  If there’s a collection on your report, and you dispute the account information, you’ll not only have wasted time and money, but you could open yourself up to lawsuits by claiming an account isn’t your own.

So what’s the better method for cleaning up your credit history?  If you’ve got accounts and debts on your file that you don’t recognize, don’t dispute them – validate them with a debt validation letter.

Rather than claiming information about an account is inaccurate and refusing to take care of it, find out the creditor or collector’s contact information (usually listed in the report) and write them a letter requesting verification of the debt, and that the collector provide proof that you owe the money, and that they have the right to collect it.  If the collection agency is unable to verify the debt, problem solved.  If they are able to verify it, your next course of action should be to set up some type of payment plan to get rid of the debt (and put an end to those annoying phone calls).

Remember that debt validation letters are only a means of verifying an existing debt, not a way to eliminate the debt entirely.  You shouldn’t try to validate a debt that you know for a fact is yours, as it could land you in deeper trouble with collectors.

Need help picking the right debt validation service?  Check out our credit repair reviews — we’re the first in town to have a My Credit Group review!

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Learning the Difference Between a Good Debt and a Bad One

November 29, 2011 Credit Card Debt

“What does that even mean?” I hear you asking already.  “I thought all debt was considered bad.  You’re telling me debt is a good thing now…?” Well, it is and it isn’t.  Today, I thought we’d touch real briefly on what I mean when I say “good debt” vs. “bad debt.” Bad debt Let’s start [...]

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What You Need to Know About Debt Relief Services

November 22, 2011 Debt Settlement

There are advertisements for debt relief just about everywhere.  TV, radio, the newspaper, and even the paid ad on the search engine page I used to research this post.   With the economy still struggling to right itself, most Americans are trying to do the same thing.  Debt relief is one of the ways that consumers [...]

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Is Going Online-Only a Good Idea for Your Credit?

November 17, 2011 Credit Repair

More and more consumers are strongly considering switching to paperless billing statements for their monthly credit card and bank statements.  Instead of getting a paper bill in the mail each month, consumers instead would receive emails containing their statements in downloadable files. Some creditors will even send out regular emails containing just the card’s balance [...]

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Why You Can’t Just Dispute Everything On Your Credit Report

November 15, 2011 Credit Repair

Your credit profile and scores are serious business.  Your credit follows you around everywhere you go – I like to refer to it as the permanent record your teachers always warned you about I grade school come to life.  You need credit to buy just about anything these days: a home, a car; hell, even [...]

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Getting a Loan with Bad Credit

November 10, 2011 Credit Repair

For those of you who realized a little too late that you should’ve paid more attention to your credit card and utility bills when they came in and are now in desperate need of a car or home loan, you’re in luck!  There’s still some hope for you yet! There is?! Yes, you spend-thrifter you, [...]

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Do You Get Your Money’s Worth from Debt Protection Plans?

November 3, 2011 Uncategorized

In an effort to help curb consumers’ anxieties over missed payments (or perhaps to capitalize on them), credit card companies started offering debt protection plans, as a way to ensure those card payments are made on time. These plans seem like a great deal for consumers who don’t want to have to worry about missing [...]

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Does Your Score Need Credit Repair?

November 1, 2011 Credit Repair

Here’s a pretty startling statistic from FICO, the firm that assigns you your credit score; apparently, over 25% of the US population (or 43 million Americans) currently has a credit score lower than 599. For reference, a score of 599 is pretty bad.  Actually strike that, it’s hella bad.  So bad, you won’t even qualify [...]

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5 Major Credit Score Myths People Still Believe

July 21, 2011 Credit Repair

If you’ve read any number of these blogs, you know the high level of importance I place on your credit score and credit score repair.  They’re like the permanent records your grade school teachers always warned you about come to life.  Suddenly, every financial decision you’ve ever made is under the microscope for lenders and [...]

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