Winning the Credit GameWritten by Cecily Backstrom
Everywhere we go, word credit can be found, shining huge dollar signs in front of our very eyes. Everyday we receive solicitation and promotions offering us credit. Credit actually makes financial world go round, yet just mere mention of word can make many people very nervous. So why does credit get such a bad reputation?It's been my experience that credit falls into same category as politics and religion. People have very strong opinions about Credit. It has been around since beginning of mankind. People would borrow either goods or services, to be repaid at a later date with interest. There's nothing wrong with that. And like anything else, it can be used, or abused. There are programs that allow you to borrow from your IRA, or you can borrow from equity that had built up in your home. Credit card companies often offer promotions to borrow money at a lowered rate of interest for a predetermined period. It's all good news for consumer. One of simplest ways to borrow money to use a Credit Card. The choices available are plentiful, with a variety of interest charges, annual fees, loyalty programs, and reward systems. Many companies offer 6 months no interest credit. This is often an excellent way of saving money as you are basically given an interest free loan for those months. It's even more valuable if you are able to transfer some of card debt from a different company into interest free loan. The best advice is to make sure you always have money in bank, or in a savings account, to pay off your card when you are taking advantage of interest free promotion.
| | How To Repair Your Credit ReportWritten by Tom Coleman
A credit report is run on a buyer when he or she needs to buy something that will take a long-term loan, such as an automobile or a house. The credit report can come from one of three agencies – Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. Each of these three agencies uses their own techniques of arriving at a credit score and receiving credit information, so attention should be paid to all three. A credit report score can go up to 800, and an increase of 50 points is a big one, enabling borrowers to get loans they previously were denied, and getting loans at much better interest rates. A 1% drop in an interest rate on a $150,000 house, for instance, may drop a payment by over $100 a month, saving borrower over $35,000 over life of 30-year loan.Each of these credit agencies have taken all financial information they can find about you and tabulated a credit score from those results. Information will include your current and previous home addresses and employers, credit cards and loans you have, and any late payments made over last ten years. These agencies’ credit reports will be very similar, but there will be differences, as they all make mistakes, and banks and credit card companies giving them information make mistakes, too.Here’s where you can improve your credit score. Any request for a change in information in a credit report must be answered and corrected within 30 days because federal law regulates credit
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