Over the past few years, the chickens came home to roost for a largely unregulated lending industry that freely advanced balances to Americans from all walks of life whether or not they’d ever demonstrated any responsible behavior regarding consumer debt; indeed, whether or not they’d ever demonstrated the ability to find or hold onto employment. Since the middle of the last decade, credit availability has been severely curtailed for even those longtime borrowers with impeccable FICO credit scores. Slowly, as our economy recovers, many of those lending institutions that weathered the storm have begun to extend unsecured debts such as credit card debt, but it’s still a far cry from the spendthrift days of yore.
On the one hand, the newly sober focus upon only granting the opportunity for loans to those men and women with a decent chance of one day paying the loan back shall doubtlessly well serve the financial markets and the United States as a whole. Certainly, a new generation shan’t be tempted by the promise of untold sums provided in return for a signature, but the coming era of fiscal restraint has also made it that much more difficult for consumers to improve (or initiate) their own credit reports. If you’re truly starting from scratch, the first step toward good credit scores will simply be assuming debts by any means necessary. While most Americans have been deluged with credit card offers since they entered high school, it can be difficult – particularly for middle aged citizens struggling through unemployment – to attain decent interest rates on an initial line of credit.
Secured credit cards taken out through a bank will generally require nothing more than a photo identification issued by your state of residence or a branch of the military plus some evidence of a street address and telephone number: and, of course, a cash deposit to entirely cover the balance of the card. ‘Borrowing’ against a secured card, even if you’re only borrowing your own money, will nonetheless add positive points to the FICO arbitrated credit rating and speed the way toward a more traditional Visa or Mastercard. At that point, you’ll have to make sure above all else that the minimum payments of the credit accounts arrive on time, no matter what. Should you even worry about being late with the checks to debtors because of the specific time in which the due date is set – just before a pay day, for example – then you should call up the lender and see if the timing could be changed.
If money’s less of an issue than sheer forgetfulness or scattered organizational habits, there’s really no excuse. Just buy a calendar and document the days of the month in which each bill should be sent out, generally one week before the official due date to allow for any hold ups on the lender’s end. There’s no end of personal computer programs easily downloadable from the internet to assist in household budgeting and the structuring of payments. For that matter, these days, most phones or cellular devices could even be programmed to remind you about the scheduled responsibilities. Easiest of all would be the automatic payment option most every bank account now provides customers since, so long as sufficient funds are deposited ahead of time, the bank will instantaneously send the minimum payments to the creditors. Not only will this system prevent the merest chance of late payments (and the subsequent denigration of FICO credit scores) but it will also save money on postage as well.
