If you and your spouse are trying to get back on track credit-wise, and you’re perhaps busy paying for your children’s schooling or paying off student loans, it’s time to repair your credit. But how do you assist your spouse through credit restoration?
We all get busy with other things in life. However, it’s important to keep your credit score in check—as well as your spouse’s, since you’re often in it together when it comes to financing major purchases.
There are several ways by which you can learn how to improve your spouse’s credit score.
How To Improve Your Spouse’s Credit
The Do-It-Yourself Method: It Takes Just 30 Days
The following credit repair information can boost your spouse’s score in just one month.
Pay down revolving balances to under 30%
As discussed in our blog post about what makes up your FICO score, your aggregate debt. Plus, the amounts owed on all credit cards and all installment accounts make up about 30% of your credit score. The most common revolving balances are amounts owed on your credit cards, and there is a big difference between the revolving balances of someone with a 780 credit score and a 680 credit score.
A person with a 680 credit score has revolving balances of 40%-50% of their credit card limits.
A person with a 780 credit score has revolving balances of 15%-25% of their credit card limits.
When it comes to how to improve your spouse’s credit, don’t worry about paying installment accounts. They have a low impact on your score. Instead, the main difference between two people with a 680 and 780 credit score is the percentage of revolving balances. Pay off your spouse’s revolving balances, if possible. At the very least, aim to pay those balances down to less than 30%. This will improve your spouse’s credit score in 30 days or fewer.
Remove a recent late payment
A single late payment can drop your credit score by 60 to 110 points. Uh-oh!
If you had a 680 credit score, a 30 day late payment can drop your score by 60 to 80 points (and 70 to 90 points if you have a 90 day late payment).
If you had a 780 credit score, a 30 day late payment can drop you score by 90 to 110 points (and 105 to 135 points if you have a 90 day late payment).
The difference between a person with a 780 score and a 680 score is that the 780 score has no late payments, while a person with the 680 may have a 30 day late payment within the last year, or a 90 day late payment 2 years ago.
Removing a late payment will take persistence. There are a few ways to request a removal. The most common and effective way is to call the original creditor and ask for a goodwill adjustment. If they resist, you can even negotiate the removal of the late payment by agreeing to sign up for automatic payments. For other late payments, you can file a dispute against the late payment, citing an inaccuracy. This is one of the top methods for how to improve your spouse’s credit score quickly.
Remove a collection account
Anyone with a 780 credit score does not have any collections or other major derogatory items on their credit report. If you do have a collection account on your credit report, your goal is to get that collection deleted.
Do NOT simply pay a collection. A paid collection usually does NOT improve your spouse’s credit score! Instead, negotiate a “pay for delete” IN WRITING with the collector. Only when you have a written agreement should you pay a collection account, and then work on getting the account deleted.
Charge small amounts to inactive credit cards
It’s easy to neglect older credit cards when you have a primary credit card that you use all the time. If your credit cards haven’t seen any activity in the last six months, charge a small amount on the card. Creditors like to see that you’re using the credit available to you (and paying the balances off responsibly). Charging a small amount and paying off the balance demonstrates that you have a different mix of credit in use, which makes up a portion of your FICO score. This is a top method to learn how to improve your spouse’s credit score.
Increase your credit limits
Call your credit card companies and request a raise to your credit limits. Ask if they can raise your credit limit with a soft pull of your credit, since a hard inquiry will appear under the “New Credit” category of your FICO score. If you can negotiate an increase of your credit limit with a soft inquiry, then you will instantly decrease your revolving balance ratio (revolving balance divided by your credit card limits).
If you have low balances and a good payment history, then your chances of successfully executing this tactic will increase.
Get some credit.
No credit = bad credit.
You need credit accounts to be reporting to your credit report in order to improve your credit score. You must have at least 1 open revolving account, even if you have no negative accounts. In addition, this revolving credit account needs to been used in the last six months.
There are a couple of ways to get credit to improve your credit score in 30 days. One way is opening a secured credit card, with a preference being given to a card that reports as an unsecured card with your credit limit to all 3 bureaus.
The other way is to add yourself to a seasoned trade line. Someone with good credit history can add you as a co-signer, where you are equally responsible for all debt. Or, they can add you as an authorized user, where you are not responsible for any of the debt – and Mortgage FICO 5 will count the history as yours.
If you truly need to know how to improve your spouse’s credit score in just 30 days, you will benefit by enlisting the help of a credit repair company like Go Clean Credit. To learn more about our credit repair programs, please contact us.
Getting Credit Help
Improving your spouse’s credit score will not happen overnight.
If your spouse’s credit history is rife with negative items, there are ways to remove some of these from your credit history, but that’s best to talk to your personal financial planner or credit professional at Go Clean Credit. With the above tips, you can frame your spouse’s credit to try and get the best score out of the standards the lenders hold themselves to.
Need to know more about how to improve your spouse’s credit? Let us know! To enlist the help of a trustworthy, effective credit repair company, contact Go Clean Credit today.
No matter what your situation, Go Clean Credit has a solution. We have many credit repair programs that are available to help you overcome your credit situation and place you back on the path to financial success. Real credit restoration is not a once size fits all model and we tailor your needs to the right program, but most people can start for just $99 per month.
We have fixed price programs that get you back on track in as little as 5 months, debt resolution solutions, programs geared toward people who have had recent short sales or foreclosures and many others. Help is just a free phone call away, or you can fill out an appointment request. Contact Go Clean Credit to schedule a free consultation today.