Thank you Lexington Law Firm for sponsoring this post. A high service partner and consumer advocate that will help you fight for the credit you deserve!
Have you started holiday shopping yet? Are you already done? Are you broke? In a recent blog post I talked about my credit history and shared my story on how I got myself out of student loan debt. Now that I am debt free it has been very important to me to keep my credit healthy, especially during this time of year! What is your credit score? Do you have healthy spending habits? Have you budgeted for you holiday shopping?
This entire year I practiced saving my money and being very adamant with tracking my spending. The first step in having healthy credit is by going through credit repair.
Credit repair is the process of identifying and addressing unfair,
inaccurate or unsubstantiated negative items on a consumer’s
credit report.
Lexington Law is a firm that helps people repair credit and they offer packages that meet every client’s needs. They are one of the leading firms in the industry because they have real lawyers that stand behind your repair process and will even intervene with client cases when the need arises. If you are a victim of identity theft, are going through or have gone through divorce, have medical debt, student debt or are on military leave, credit repair may be the answer for you. Lexington Law believes that you have a right to a fair, accurate, and substantiated credit report. They can navigate the credit repair process by harnessing the power of knowledge and the law to fight for their clients’ rights to good credit, which is why I am sharing about them again during the Holiday season.
After your free consultation, Lexington Law will pull all three of your full credit reports ($14.99) and the repair you need. You also get an inquiry assist tool to challenge hard inquiries, identity theft insurance up to $1 million, credit coaching, and a score improvement analysis, online and mobile support, chat, and email.
Lexington Law has long-standing relationships with all three of the credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion which is a huge benefit for anyone looking to remove those errors. Once you have repaired your credit, the best way to raise that credit score and have consistent credit health is by building your credit. This is my favorite part about Lexington Law right now, and why it is so perfect for holiday shopping. One quick question…What do you think a good credit score is? 700 or above is considered a good and healthy credit score, anything below a 630 is considered poor. If you have repaired your credit and you need to get your number up to a healthy level, one of the fastest ways to do that is by using credit cards. This can be very helpful during the holiday season.
First, let me just say that using credit cards must be done with incredible discipline and responsibility. Here is how I am managing and building my credit this holiday season.
I have built a savings account this year and I know that I want to spend no more than 15% of that savings on Christmas this year. The first thing I did was sit down and make a list of who I need to shop for. Lets just say I have $1000 to use on Christmas Gifts this year, and I have 19 people to buy gifts for. If I spend the same amount of money on each person I would have roughly $50 each. Is there a possibility I can spend less on some of them? Yes! After I made the list of people to shop for, I made decisions on what I wanted to spend on each person and wrote down some ideas of what to get them.
The next step is very important. I selected a good credit card, and by that I mean a credit card that provided a utilization ratio of less than 20%. So I knew I wanted a credit card with a limit of $5000 and only use $1000 of it. ($5000/$1000 = 20% utilization ratio). Then I took that $1000 I committed to spending and put it aside to use to pay the credit card off right away. I do this by paying each monthly bill and paying over the amount being charged until the balance is completely paid off. I like to pay credit cards off quickly so I will usually double or triple the amount owed, using the $1000 I set aside.
This holiday credit health practice is not only good for my credit, but it is really great for me too just because it helps me to stay in control of my spending which we all know can be especially tricky this time of year! You can learn more about managing credit cards and building your credit score and how Lexington Law can help HERE.