Thrifty Thinking: Five Fast Facts to Boost Your Credit Score

GreenPath Debt Solutions has listed 5 things you can do to build up your credit score (from David Flores, GreenPath Debt Solutions manager and counselor):

1. Pay your bills on time.
2. Use less than thirty percent of your total available credit. An example would be if you have the $1000 of available credit, you should never have more than $300 of credit on your cards.
3. Don’t have too many open lines of credit available (having several open lines of credit, even if not all of them are in use, will raise red flags from potential lenders.)
4. Have a good balance of credit (installment loans — like a car loan — and credit cards versus just credit cards.)
5. Check your credit report regularly (once every 3 months) to ensure that accurate information is being reported. Log on to www.annualcreditreport.com to download your free reports (one free from each of the 3 credit reporting bureaus each year.)

For more information on ways to help your credit score, log onto GreenPath University at www.greenpath.org/university and click on the "credit" link.

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About GreenPath Debt Solutions

GreenPath Debt Solutions is a nationwide, non-profit financial organization that assists consumers with credit card debt, housing debt and bankruptcy concerns. GreenPath is a member of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies (AICCCA) and is accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA).