There are a number of ways in which one can improve their credit score. However, the method that every person would swear by first and foremost when it comes to improving the credit score, would be to pay your bills on time and to maintain your expenditure well below your credit score at all times.

A bad credit score can come in the way of so many important activities. Hence, if an individual has landed themselves in a bad credit score, repairing the damage as soon as possible should be the immediate priority. Some tips to improve a bad credit score are as follows:

• Credit report review: Each individual is entitled to one free credit report by each of the three reporting agencies. Requesting these copies will not have any negative impact on your credit score. Therefore, it is advised to review these reports carefully. Any errors found in this report should be disputed as soon as possible. Fixing errors in the credit report can be one of the fastest ways to improve your bad credit score. If any false information or outdated data is present in the reports, it should be taken to the credit reporting agencies. As soon as the wrong information is removed, the credit score will turn up.
• Reach out to the creditors: In the case where you have missed payment deadlines and cannot continue to afford your monthly bills, the best way to move forward would be contacting your creditors. Setting up a payment plan together can help in alleviating the negative impact that would have been caused by late payments and high unpaid balances.
• Optimizing payments: One of the most important factors to take into account to avoid any more negative impact on the credit score is meeting deadlines for payments. To make sure that any deadlines are not missed, set up reminders online to make all your payments on time. Doing so consistently can increase the credit score in a few months. If it is possible, it is also advisable to make payments for bills once every two weeks instead of once in a month. This can help in decreasing credit utilization and has a great probability of increasing the credit score too.
• Handling credit card accounts: The longer the history of a credit card is, the better it is for your credit score. So don’t go about a spree of closing all your credit cards at once. If you do have to, start by closing the credit accounts which have been opened recently. Applying for new credit accounts should also be done sparingly. Applying or opening a great number of credit accounts in a short duration is capable of hurting the credit score and therefore is not advisable. In case you handle multiple credit cards, start by paying the dues for the cards where you’ve reached or are very close to the credit limit. This would bring down the credit utilization rate and do good for the credit score.