Improve Your Credit Score

101 Tips For Improving Your Credit Score, Repairing your Credit And Boosting Your Credit Rating

Credit Score Tip #96: Give Yourself a Treat - without affecting your credit rating

Reestablishing good credit is hard work and daunting as well.  Once in a while, as you reach a milestone, you need to reward yourself.  You should do this through some means that do not involve debt or money.  If you repay your credit card bill, there is no sense in running up that bill again on a shopping trip.

Instead, you should list some inexpensive and fun treats you could give yourself.  Keep this list wherever you keep your financial file.  As you reach a big milestone, take out your list and immediately reward yourself with one of the items on the list.  This will not only keep you motivated, but it will inexpensively keep you from feeling too deprived while you work on your credit score.

Credit Score Tip #97: Work on your emotional response to debt and money

Most of us carry a lot of emotional baggage with us when it comes to money.  We see money as a marker of success, or we see money as a way of making ourselves feel better, and these attitudes lead us to much of our financial and credit problems.  If we rely on money to make us feel successful, then we are apt to overspend.  If we fear money - or the lack of it - we are unlikely to save it or make investments with it. 

We need to be aware of the ways we respond to money and the ways that those responses shape the ways we deal with money.  Some financial experts recommend that clients keep money journals, in which they record their money hopes, their money fears, and their responses to spending and money.   A money journal can help you by showing you how feel about spending and about money.  If you can isolate the emotions that influence how you spend money and how you make your money decisions, you will be well on your way towards fixing your financial problems.  

Credit Score & Credit Repair Help Once you're retired, your assets can last several more years if you draw on money from taxable accounts first and let tax-advantaged accounts compound for as long as possible.  (source: money.cnn.com)