If you have filed for bankruptcy, you are not alone. Millions of Americans have been forced to take this drastic step to get out from under the crushing weight of debt. The good news is that bankruptcy does not have to be the end of the world. You can improve your credit after bankruptcy! Here are steps you can take to rebuild your credit and establish a solid financial future.
Since your pre-bankruptcy payment history portrays you as an extremely risky borrower to lenders. You need to establish your credit. How can you do this?
You can assure lenders that they won’t lose money by lending to you by using credit products geared towards helping you improve your financial profile. Here are the credit products you can use:
Another option to rebuild your credit is to take a small loan from a local bank or credit union, such as a credit builder loan. You can borrow against the money you already have on deposit and only get access to the money once you pay off your loan. You can also get a loan without cash at hand, but the money loaned is placed in a savings account and is released to you once you complete payment. Your financial institution then reports your payment history to credit bureaus.
Getting a secured credit card is a great way to begin rebuilding your credit after bankruptcy. To get a secured credit card, you have to put down a deposit, for example, $200-$300, and the credit card company gives you a credit line for that amount. This cash serves as collateral for the credit limit, thus less risky.
Because there is less risk for the issuer, you are more likely to get approved for a secured credit card even if you have bad credit. However, you have to ensure you make your payments on time and keep your balance low to avoid damaging your credit score. Also, make sure you choose a card with low fees.
If you need help getting approved for a loan, another option is to find a friend or family member willing to cosign the loan with you. A cosigner agrees to make the loan payments if you default. This arrangement is helpful if you have bad credit or no credit because the lender will consider your cosigner’s good credit when approving the loan. However, it is important to remember that if you default on the loan, it will damage your credit score and your cosigner’s good credit rating. Only enter into this arrangement if you’re confident that you can make timely payments each month.
If you cannot get approved for a credit card, another option is to become an authorized user on someone else’s account. As an authorized user, you are not responsible for making any payments on the account; however, the activity shows up on your credit report. So, if the account holder makes their payments on time and keeps their balance low, their credit score will also benefit. Just be sure you trust the account holder completely because if they miss payments or max out the account, it will also reflect poorly on your credit score.
It is important to regularly check your credit report for errors or fraudulent activity and dispute any mistakes. You can also monitor your credit score to see how well you manage your financial responsibility. This allows you to track your progress toward rebuilding your credit after bankruptcy and make any necessary adjustments to your financial habits.
If you feel overwhelmed or do not have the time to monitor and improve your credit on your own, working with a reputable credit repair agency can be helpful. These agencies can help you identify any mistakes on your credit report and work with creditors and the credit bureaus to correct them.
They may also give you personalized advice for improving your credit score. However, be sure to research and choose a reputable credit repair agency like Ascent Network, as some may charge high fees or use tactics that could harm your credit score.
Filing for bankruptcy is a difficult decision that harms your credit. However, by taking steps such as utilizing credit builder loans, getting a secured credit card, becoming an authorized user, and working with a credit repair agency, you can improve your credit score and manage your finances better in the future.
A more positive outlook toward a more financially secure future starts today. Give the Ascent Network a call today at 1-877-871-2400. Ascent Network helps consumers all over the United States and is available locally in Huntington Beach, CA, Coachella Valley, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio, and Thousand Palms.
No matter how bad your financial situation is, you can get your financial health back by improving how you handle your money. Whether you have been affected by foreclosure, credit card debt, student debt, or other financial issues, it’s never too late. You can learn to manage your finances and take control of your life again. Here’s how you can overcome poor credit and regain your financial health!
Like most people, you are probably struggling with poor credit, and you may have even tried to repair it, but nothing seemed to work. The first key to helping you overcome poor credit is kicking out the old habits and developing a new relationship with money. How can you do that?
You should track your money diligently by writing down your expenses. Every dollar you use should be accounted for so you can know how much you spend on wants versus needs.
Managing your debts is another way to help you live a debt-free life and improve your credit score. Consolidate some debts, pay off debts with higher interest, and diligently make payments without fail.
Spend your money on expenses that help you meet your goals. Trimming expenses from things like subscriptions, cable TV, and opting to eat in rather than eat out help you realize your goal of paying off your debts.
Another way to improve your credit score and get your financial health back is by not taking any new loans until after your debts are paid off completely.
Just like any relationship, money relationships need time and attention, especially in the process of budgeting and saving. Attention in budgeting creates financial stability because you get to follow a plan that makes it easier to pay bills on time, which creates a positive impact on your credit score.
When you focus on budgeting your money, you also get to save for major expenses such as home and car. You also get to set something aside for emergencies.
You can only get to know what is essential and what’s not when you budget your money. To overcome bad credit, you must take drastic measures such as downsizing your lifestyle.
Here are some practical steps to overcome poor credit:
To develop good money habits, steer clear of bad money habits like living above your means, impulse buying, and racking up credit card debts. Create long-term and short-term goals to manage your finances effectively. You may need to break long-term goals into smaller goals so that you can see the steps you are making and be motivated.
Remember, good money habits that help you get your financial health back include planning, saving, paying off debts, and living below your means when paying off your loans, and living within your means once you are debt free.
Developing good money habits may include paying bills on time. And if budgeting seems a bit hectic, you can get started with an online budgeting tool to help you track where your money goes and how much you have left at the end of each month.
Repairing poor credit is not easy; it requires your commitment to repair and rebuild your credit history. Once you achieve your goals and financial health, you should be proud of all the strides you have taken to achieve this.
How can you express gratitude for where you are right now? Well, ensuring you don’t slide back into a financial pitfall is one way to show gratitude.
Are you thinking of buying a home or getting a car loan? Your excellent credit score will enable you to qualify for these loans at a much lower interest rate. Even when you contemplate taking another loan, it is important that you keep up with good spending habits to have excellent financial health.
Many people want the financial freedom that comes with having good credit but may not know the necessary steps to achieve this. If you still find it hard to repair your credit, financial experts like Ascent Network are more than ready to help you achieve financial freedom.
A more positive outlook toward a more financially secure future starts today. Give the Ascent Network a call today at 1-877-871-2400. Ascent Network helps consumers all over the United States and is available locally in Huntington Beach, CA, Coachella Valley, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio, and Thousand Palms.
Missing student loan payments puts your account under delinquent or default status. This leads to higher interest on loans, loss of eligibility on some student aid programs, and worse, repossession of property.
Can late payments on student loans be removed? What happens when you don’t get them removed? Will removing student loans from your credit report affect your credit score?
A default student loan occurs 120 days after delinquency on a private loan and 270 to 360 days for federal loans. Your score is likely to drop by 100 points! Once your lender accurately reports the late payments, the information will not be removed.
However, if the information reported is incorrect, you can dispute the information and have it removed. To remove a student loan from your credit report due to fraud or inaccuracies, file a dispute with the three major credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Ask them to remove the inaccurate loan details from your credit report.
An investigation will be launched, and the information will be removed from your credit report when it is clear the loan was taken without your authorization.
Student loan forbearance is an agreement you make with the lender to reduce or postpone student loan repayment for a designated period. Forbearance is only temporary relief to help you deal with a sudden hardship and helps prevent your loan from defaulting. Unfortunately, forbearance increases the amount you owe.
If you are unemployed and the student loan is weighing you down, you can apply for deferment, which can be interest-free.
Still, both forbearance and deferment are short-term solutions to help you catch up with the payments when your loans haven’t defaulted. Still, you need to pay your student loan as soon as your financial situation improves.
On August 24, 2022, President Joe Bidden announced that his administration would waive student loan debt for qualifying Americans. But, are all student loans eligible for late repayment forgiveness?
To qualify for the federal government forgiveness program, you must have taken direct federal loans or took a Stafford loan. Non-federal loans, handled by private loan companies, don’t qualify for the federal loan forgiveness program.
Another way to get student loan forgiveness is the income-driven program that stretches out to a term of 20 or 25 years from the standard repayment period of 10 years. After making on-time qualifying payments for the period, whatever balance you still have is usually forgiven. Income-driven payments are usually capped between 10% to 20% of your income.
No. As Aaron Huebner explains in this Youtube video Q&A session, a student loan is possibly one of the worst debts because it has a negative connotation and doesn’t go away! So, consolidating your defaulted loan will not remove late payments.
Debt consolidation opens a new entry in your credit report but won’t erase the late student payment history. The report will keep showing until the end of seven years when it naturally drops off your credit report.
Regarding credit scoring, payment history, length of credit history, amounts owed, new credit cards, and credit mix affect your credit score. When you consolidate your student loan, you get to lose these crucial additions. However, properly taking charge of your student loan repayment plan gives you a good credit score that helps you apply for future loans and credit cards.
These are some of the federal student forgiveness programs you can apply for if you qualify:
Managing student loans may need some counseling, especially if you have been falling behind on your payments. Ascent Network has a qualified team to help you take charge of your finances. Whether you are applying for forbearance, deferment, or disputing an incorrect student loan entry, you can trust Ascent Network to help you improve your score.
A more positive outlook toward a more financially secure future starts today. Give the Ascent Network a call today at 1-877-871-2400. Ascent Network helps consumers all over the United States and is available locally in Huntington Beach, CA, Coachella Valley, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio, and Thousand Palms.
Is it possible to negotiate the rate you pay in interest on your credit cards? If you carry a balance on your credit cards, the answer to this question could save you a lot of money in interest.
Generally, credit cards charge cardholders an annual percentage rate (APR). This APR is how the credit card company charges you for the privilege of using their card. The percentage amount can vary. Some credit card companies charge more than others, and often the APR you are charged is based on your credit score.
It is important to know how much the APR is on your cards. Even lowering your rate a few percentage points could save you thousands of dollars.
Interest rates vary by card. But, more than that, they are based on the risk the credit card company is taking by issuing you credit. Just like any other lender, they need to weigh how much of a risk it is that you will not make your payments on time and in full. Where loans for large items have your house or your car as collateral in case you default, credit companies do not have any real-property items to use as collateral.
This is why many credit card companies’ interest rates are often higher than those of banks and other lenders. If you have a low credit score, you are a higher risk to the company; therefore, your interest rate is likely higher than those with excellent credit scores.
After climbing for 20 straight weeks this summer and spring, the current national average credit card APR is a little more than 18%. The average changes often, so it is a good idea to do your research when looking for a competitive APR.
Generally, the answer to that question is, no, you cannot. However, there are always exceptions. Primarily, when you have a higher credit score, you are a better risk for the lender. And the less risk you are, the lender realizes they can make more money off of you without fear.
Therefore, you can go to them and let them know you are unhappy with their high interest rate. Let them know you may move on to another lender. They might reply with a counteroffer or another program that they can offer that has a lower APR because they would like to keep your business.
This has the potential to work only if your credit score is above 680. If it is below that, you will most likely be stuck with your current interest rate until you can improve your credit score.
If your goal is to lower your interest rate, you first need to increase your credit score. Your score is derived from information contained in your credit report. The higher the number, the better your score.
Here are a few ways to improve your score over time:
It is unlikely you will be able to decrease your interest rate, but it is not impossible. Do everything you can to increase your credit score, and once you do, contact your credit card company. Let them know you want a better APR. If you are not a credit risk, there is a possibility they will honor your request.
The worst that can happen is that they say no. Nothing lost; nothing gained. But, if they say yes, it could save you thousands in interest. It never hurt to ask.
A more positive outlook toward a more financially secure future starts today. Give the Ascent Network a call today at 1-877-871-2400. Ascent Network helps consumers all over the United States. It is available locally in Huntington Beach, CA, Coachella Valley, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio, and Thousand Palms.
Charge-offs, late payments, bankruptcy, and defaulting on loans cause you to have bad credit. It is no secret that the longer you continue having bad credit, the more money it costs you.
Each time you take out a loan or swipe your credit card, there is a system in place that tracks and keeps a score. Your credit score, whether bad or good, comes into play whenever you want a loan, and it affects your insurance premiums.
Here’s a look into how much bad credit costs you.
A bad credit score is detrimental because it prevents you from qualifying for the best mortgage rates. This means you pay more over the term of your mortgage. What may seem like a slight difference in interest rate adds up to thousands of dollars over the repayment period.
A credit score below 580 only allows you to secure credit cards that require a minimum deposit of $100 to $200 to open a credit account. In addition, applying for the card is likely to cause your credit score to go down more because applying for a new card creates a hard inquiry on your credit report.
Your bad credit score negatively affects your auto insurance premiums because you are viewed as a high-risk borrower and more likely to file claims. A person with a credit score of 800 or higher pays approximately $1,297 a year, but someone with a credit score of 579 or lower pays $2,717 a year. Clearly, having a bad credit score could potentially cost you $1,420 a year when paying your auto insurance.
Career advancement is everyone’s dream as it comes with better pay. But before employers entrust you with more responsibilities, they may pull your credit reports to ensure you are someone who is responsible, especially if the new position comes with financial responsibilities.
Credit repair is a process that takes time and effort, but results are usually noticeable within three to six months. The length of time varies from one individual to another, depending on how much damage has already been done to their credit reports and what has already been done to correct it.
Here’s how you can repair your credit:
There is a lot of confusion surrounding the terms “credit restoration” and “credit repair.” Both involve correcting errors on your credit report and taking steps to improve your credit score. But there are some key differences between credit restoration and credit repair.
Credit restoration entails removing negative items from your credit report. You do this by negotiating with your creditor or disputing the information through the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by proving identity theft or demonstrating that the item is inaccurate.
On the other hand, credit repair is the process of taking action to improve your credit score by paying off debts and maintaining a good payment history.
A credit score is a snapshot of your creditworthiness, and credit lenders use the credit score to make very important financial decisions about you. But is there a difference between a 600 and 620 credit score?
Here’s how VantageScore views your credit score:
This is how FICO views your credit score:
No. Credit repair actually helps you improve your credit score by removing negative information from your report and replacing it with positive information. Your FICO score, for example, will improve by a few points as a result of a clean slate on your report.
Bad credit costs you your financial freedom from getting auto loans, mortgages, and getting promotions. If you have a poor credit score, you can still improve it in a few months.
A more positive outlook toward a more financially secure future starts today. Give the Ascent Network a call today at 1-877-871-2400. Ascent Network helps consumers all over the United States and is available locally in California in Huntington Beach, Coachella Valley, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio, and Thousand Palms.
If you have filed for bankruptcy, you are not alone. Millions of Americans have been forced to take this drastic step to get out from under the crushing weight of debt. The good news is that bankruptcy does not have to be the end of the world. You can improve your credit after bankruptcy! Here … Continued
Read MoreNo matter how bad your financial situation is, you can get your financial health back by improving how you handle your money. Whether you have been affected by foreclosure, credit card debt, student debt, or other financial issues, it’s never too late. You can learn to manage your finances and take control of your life … Continued
Read MoreMissing student loan payments puts your account under delinquent or default status. This leads to higher interest on loans, loss of eligibility on some student aid programs, and worse, repossession of property. Can late payments on student loans be removed? What happens when you don’t get them removed? Will removing student loans from your credit … Continued
Read MoreIs it possible to negotiate the rate you pay in interest on your credit cards? If you carry a balance on your credit cards, the answer to this question could save you a lot of money in interest. What Is an APR? Generally, credit cards charge cardholders an annual percentage rate (APR). This APR is … Continued
Read MoreCharge-offs, late payments, bankruptcy, and defaulting on loans cause you to have bad credit. It is no secret that the longer you continue having bad credit, the more money it costs you. Each time you take out a loan or swipe your credit card, there is a system in place that tracks and keeps a … Continued
Read MoreWE COMMUNICATE WITH ALL THREE CREDIT BUREAUS FOR YOU:
