One of the most important components of your overall financial health is your credit score. This is extremely important as it is an indication of your overall credit worthiness. Lenders and other interested parties will often use your credit history and scores to determine whether or not to provide you a loan. Beyond that, credit scores can also have an impact on your ability to get certain jobs, qualify for an apartment lease, or do any number of financial transactions. Since credit scores are so important, having a high one is extremely important. If you do not have a good credit history today, there is still a process that can be followed to help you to rebuild your credit and reputation. By following these credit repair strategies, you can see your credit improve both immediately and over a longer period of time.

1 - Review Your Credit Report

The first step in credit repair is to know where you begin. All three of the major credit bureaus are required to provide you with a free credit report on an annual basis. While the scores are not necessarily provided along with them for free, you can normally obtain them for a small fee. Since you are focused on improving your scores, paying this fee will be worthwhile as it will ensure you have a full understanding of where you stand. When you receive your credit report, you will be able to review both the summary and the detail behind it. The summary report will give you the aggregated credit scores, a summary of what has been negatively affecting your credit scores, and what is helping your scores. This information will allow you to understand what areas could be improved that will help to increase your credit reputation quickly.