Boost Your Credit Score in 2021 with These 5 Tips

It’s no secret that credit scores are important, but it’s also no secret that the methods behind them can be super confusing to understand. Since having good — or bad — credit can affect many of the moving parts in your life, there will probably be a time when you think about methods for boosting your own. However, how the heck are you supposed to do it? Lucky for you, we have answers.

Today, we’re sharing 5 simple steps for increasing your credit score in 2021 so that you can scale your financial life and create new methods that work for you. Whether you’re making it a 2021 goal to boost your credit score or you’re looking to increase your own financial literacy, we have you covered.

1. Do a self-audit

When it comes to checking your credit in 2021, life is a lot easier than it used to be. Use an app or service like Mint or Credit Karma, take a look at your credit score, and then perform your own self-audit. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do your accounts match up?
• Are you seeing any glaring issues?
• Does your credit report make sense?
• When do your credit issuers report to the bureau each month?
• Do you see areas in which you can improve?

Then, take that self-audit you made and create some goals for yourself. Using your credit score, what are the areas in which you need to improve? Where is your credit great? Where is it not-so-great? Really, it’s all in doing your research and creating a path to fix any issues and strengthen your wins.

2. Make a debt repayment plan

While not everyone has debt, it’s a key facet in many credit scores that needs to be increased — so it’s important to get a handle on it quickly. There are several methods to paying down debt, and it really depends on the person as to which debt repayment method is going to work for you. 

The important thing? Lower your balances, and then keep them low. Whether it’s through refinancing, tightening up your budget, or consolidating it all down, lower balances often point to higher credit scores.

3. Set up auto-payments

One of the biggest killers of a credit score lies in late and forgotten payments. The fix? Set up automatic payments for any and everything you find yourself forgetting about, and watch those on-time payments help your credit score within weeks. There are more benefits to auto-payments than credit score boosts, too. Often, you can even receive perks like reduced interest rates when it comes to things like auto-pays on student loans.

4. Diversify your credit

Diversification helps when it comes to your credit score, as it shows that you’re trustworthy. Your next credit score boosting tip? Making sure your credit report reflects more than just one credit card that you took out five years ago. While we’re not recommending you run out and take out tons of credit, there can be some huge benefits to having multiple credit lines. In fact, you can even become an authorized user on someone else’s account. It all matters!

5. Make some calls

One of the easiest (and most ignored) ways to up your credit score is all about asking some questions. Truly, you’d be surprised at how far a kind phone call can go. From negotiating lower interest rates to asking the credit reporting agency to remove a late fee, you may be able to spur some edits to your credit score by asking for some understood adjustments. After all, why not try?

At CIFS, one of our biggest missions is helping you to increase your financial literacy through advice and education that makes sense. When it comes to raising credit scores and using credit responsibly, we’re the team to help. Learn more about us today.