Your credit score is important when you want to qualify for a loan, such as a mortgage or a car loan, or many other financial products including insurance policies. Only with a high credit score will money lenders want to give you a loan. If your credit score isn’t high enough they won’t want to give you a loan, meaning you either won’t be able to buy your house, or you might only be able to get loans with high interest rates. Nowadays some employers even check credit scores of job applicants so maintaining a positive score is truly important not just in order to get a loan but potentially also when it comes to applying for a new job.
The importance of having a high credit score:
- It gives you lower interest rates on loans and mortgages. As you know by now, even small differences in percentages can make a huge difference over time.
- Landlords usually evaluate rental applications on credit scores as with a higher credit score they believe you are less likely to default on your payment of the rent.
- Other financial products such as insurance policies as well as investment opportunities are sometimes only granted to those who have a sufficiently high credit score.
- Certain companies and employers don’t hire people with low credit scores as they believe these people have less self-control and are less goal-oriented.
- Higher credit scores increase your chances of getting a higher credit limit. This in turn helps you decrease your credit utilization rate (see further below)
Tips to improve and maintain a credit score:
- Don’t ever default on a credit card payment. At the end of each month make sure that you pay the minimum you are required to pay.
- Start paying off your debt, this shows that you are a responsible person looking to reduce your debt instead of constantly living with outstanding amounts.
- Once you’ve paid off all outstanding credit card debt, make sure to pay off your credit card in full at the end of each month from now on.
- Maintain a low credit utilization ratio, i.e. the percentage of your credit limit you use. Try and keep it below 30%. For example if you have 3 credit cards with a $1,000 limit, aim to use no more than $900.
- Don’t apply for credit too often or for too long. A credit company will keep track of any inquiries they receive and if somebody has been marked with having made lots of enquiries or over an extended period of time, your score again goes down.
- Close cards you are no longer using. This might reduce your credit utilization percentage, but having many different cards also imposes a risk of fraud, theft and temptation to use more than you need.
- You usually get a better rating for cards that you’ve had for a while, so avoid closing long-term cards.
- Keep track of your credit score regularly, e.g. monthly. You can easily check your credit score online.
- Start build your score early on. The longer you give it time, the better your score.
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