We’ve looked at the following questions concerning buying a consumable item.

• Should I use Credit to buy the item?
• Have I found the best credit use or buy for the purchase?

Now let’s look at Question #3: How is my credit rating or score?

You often hear it said that it is an advantage to establish credit and build your credit score, but perhaps not as much is said about keeping your credit good. Once you establish credit, you are watched – not only your record of payments, but any reports about your activities from newspapers and other sources. Through national credit bureaus – Equifax, Transunion and Experian your credit rating (score) follows you all over the country and even to some foreign countries.

Keep Your Credit Good!

Protect this valuable property – your credit:

• Make payments promptly, at the agreed time.
• If you are unable to meet a payment, call your creditor or visit him and tell him what you will be able to do.
• Be especially careful to protect property until it is paid for.

Just because your credit isn’t the best doesn’t mean you can’t get a personal or signature loan from a bank or institution. However, having an excellent credit rating makes it much easier and with lower interest. But, these types of loans are now available and can be a great way to build your credit rating and manage your finances effectively.

Obviously, there is a price for having less than perfect credit and in this case, it’s higher interest rates. They aren’t always unreasonable, however, so shop around and see what is available first. It should go without saying that the worse off your credit is, the less likely you’re going to find a good interest rate. So be reasonable in your expectations and demands.

Secured personal loans, backed by property or collateral, are also good choices. It also gives you incentive to make sure your payments are on time, every time. Creditors know this and will be more likely to give a loan under these circumstances. Your car, home, or other property are all viable sources of credit for you.

Each time you successfully use and pay off credit, your credit account will go up and you’ll have a better and better score. That all-important score is what secures your ability to get better and bigger loans, easier terms, and better interest rates. So keep building that credit score up.

Utilize the tools you have and make sure your credit is being used well. Wisely paying your loans on time or early and making sure your terms are acceptable so that this can happen is the key to success in building or renewing credit.

There are many credit repair companies and counselors claiming to give the cure-all for your credit woes, promising insider tricks to repair your credit fast. These services don’t come cheap, but based on the potential money they can save you in interest rates, it certainly looks like a great deal… if they can deliver! Or is it?

The truth is… everything these companies or individuals do to repair your credit, you can do yourself. The Federal Trade Commission claims it, urging Americans to educate themselves and take their money matters into their own hands.

Of course to take advantage of this, you must know which steps to take, the ones which will get the greatest response from lenders and other financial institutions to help repair your credit. The same tactics credit repair companies would use on your behalf, and learned after years of trial. These tips are not secrets, and any good credit repair manual can fully detail how and why each tactic works, and detail which ones should be right for you based on your situation.

Contrary to some popular belief, repairing your credit goes beyond sending out a few simple letters, than waiting for lenders to magically wipe large chunks of your debt out and remove the negative entries from your credit reports.

The FTC itself states that time, and a concerted effort of paring down your debts through a debt repayment plan are your main keys to success. Instant fixes simply aren’t as powerful as others may perceive them to be. Cutting down on the number of credit cards you own and similar quick fixes can help, but the improvement in score will be marginal at best.

The core of the problem is your debt and past history of non-payments or late payments, which must themselves be addressed. Doing this takes the type of effort and sacrifice some simply are not willing to make for our greater good. This means drastically cutting back on expenses for an extended period until the debt is well within a manageable level or entirely paid off.

If you are going to look into other quick fix options as well, you should first obtain a copy of your credit report, to which you’re entitled to a free copy each year. This report will show you who’ll need to contact to get those negative entries removed and improve your score, as well as giving you the ability to make sure the data on the report is correct.

If there is something amiss on your report that is severely damaging to your score, getting this corrected could be the one quick fix that could actually have a major impact on your score.

With the knowledge of the information contained in your credit report, and what to do with it, you should be able to make small inroads into your FICO score woes. The meat and potatoes of the problem will need to be delved into head first though, with a long, grueling road ahead that will be anything but gravy.