1. Pay all your debt on time.

Paying your bills in a timely manner is a sure way of maintaining your credit score and eventually increasing your credit score.  Track record is super important when it comes to generating a score for your credit report.  The scoring models need something to base that 3 digit number off of and this is super important!

2. Check your credit report frequently.

You’re entitled to a free credit report once every 12 months via www.annualcreditreport.com and you should use that to your advantage.  Although, a credit score is not included in this free offering, the data is what’s important.  It is always recommended you sign up for some sort of monitoring program.  Monitoring services are available through most credit card companies (where you’ll get the best deal).  These services will alert you within 24 hours of any change.  For example, new inquiry, new accounts (good or bad), score changes, and more.  Better to catch a problem early than later.

3. Pay down your revolving debt.

Revolving accounts are most commonly know as your credit cards.  They are one of the riskiest accounts to have and therefore maintaining lower usage helps the credit score tremendously.  Usage is more important than balance amount.  Meaning percentage of use based on credit limit.  For example, if you have a $500 credit limit and you carry a $400 balance you’re at 80% usage.  This scenario will hurt your score more than having a $4,000 balance on a $10,000 credit limit (40% usage).