Boost Credit Score Overnight? Peep Here For All the Bits and Pieces

Your credit score is that number on your credit report that tells lenders whether you’re a good credit risk. The higher your score, the better it is for you when borrowing money and getting approved for things like mortgages and car loans.

You are in a situation today where you are going to apply for a loan, either for a mortgage, a car, or a credit card. You are having the headache that your current credit score will cause you to be turned down for a loan, your interest rate will be unnecessarily high, or you won’t get the amount of money you requested.

So, you need to boost your credit score today. And here is how you can do that.

Ways to boost your Credit Score Overnight

1. Read Your Credit Score Report 

Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax offer free credit score reports, and you need to contact one of them to get a look at yours. Why? Because your credit report can have errors. It happens.

Perhaps you have paid off a loan or credit card that has not been in the records. Possibly some information is severely out-of-date. The worse part is it’s feasible that someone else’s information has been aligned with your credit score. 

Once you read your credit report, and if there are errors, those companies have a process by which you can amend your credit report. You can improve your credit score by as much as 100 points if there are mistakes.

2. Pay Off a Credit Card

Credit reports include information about your credit utilization. That is the percentage of the money you have available in loans, including credit cards, versus the amount you have used. If you have a credit card with a $10,000 limit and your balance is $3,000, your credit utilization on that card is 30 percent. Thirty percent is known to be the high end of credit utilization that lenders want to see.

How Do You Reduce Your Credit Utilization Percentage?

• Reduce the balances on cards where your credit utilization percentage is high. 
• Request a higher credit limit

You don’t want to use the money extended to you with a higher credit limit. You want to lower the percentage of available money versus the amount you have used. Credit card companies will increase your limit if you have a good history of paying the minimum due.

3. Make a Plan

Your need for a higher credit score is immediate, but you still have to plan to make the changes that are going to get you a higher credit score.

Go over all of your loans – from banks or credit cards – and determine a way to reduce balances on all loans beyond the minimum due. Any loan you can pay off faster – with multiple monthly payments, perhaps – will improve your credit score.

4. An Easy Ask

If you are close to someone with a high credit score and no real financial problems, ask them to make you an authorized user on one of their credit cards, especially one with a high credit limit. You can tell your friend or family member you will never use the account – don’t ask for a card, don’t put the number into any of your digital pay accounts – but you will be reported to credit agencies as an authorized user on a high credit limit account will increase your available credit against your credit used, decreasing your credit utilization number.

5. Get Points for Rent and Utility Payment

People who have a mortgage and make their monthly payments get credit for doing so. People who pay a rent bill on time every month only get credit if they ask. They do get penalized if they miss rent payments, however.

There are rent reporting services you can contact that will send your rent payment history to credit report companies. The use of rent reporting varies depending on the credit report company, but lenders often go beyond the Big Three to look at your credit history.