How You Can Use Debt Consolidation to Improve Your Credit Score?

Managing credit isn’t easy, I know many people that have had to learn this lesson the hard way. Many people start applying for credit before they are ready and as a result they end up over their eyeballs in debt. It doesn’t matter if you make 20k a year or 100k a year, if you don’t know how to manage debt then you are always living paycheck to paycheck, which is not a good feeling. If you’ve already made some mistakes, then you probably have noticed a decrease in your credit sore. It is ok though, because we are here to help. There is a way that you can lower your debt  payments to a manageable level and still improve your credit score in the process. It is called debt consolidation and we are going to show you how it can help you.

If you have a lot of different accounts that are past due, then it will weight very negatively on your credit score. One of the keys to having a good credit score is to have a lot of old accounts that are not behind and have been paid on time. If you have a bunch of old accounts, then you’ve already got half of the equation, but what do you do with the debt you have been carrying on them?

Some people might tell you to start paying off everything and then to close your accounts. This happens to be bad advice, because even though you may have a poor history with one lender, the age is important if you pay it off you will be doing yourself a disservice by closing it.

The trick is to consolidate your debts into one payment so that you can lower your monthly payment towards debt, which in effect allows you to get more bang for your buck. It is much easier to make one payment then several, that is obvious, but this is especially true if the consolidation is a lower interest rate. Another reason that this works so well is that you can create one “full” account and several “empty” accounts in the process. Although you will have a loan with a high balance, you will have several accounts that now reflect a paid status, which looks very good.

Eventually, as these accounts age and you keep from maxing them out again, you will see your credit score gradually increase as the late payments stop weighing so heavily on your account. This can take a few months to a few years, but eventually it will work! The psychological effect will also be tremendous because you won’t have to worry about calls from debt collectors bugging you all day long and you’ll be able to make sure that you are up to date. It is easy to miss a payment when you have several, but when you’ve only got one then it is much easier to manage.

Debt consolidation is really a win-win situation. You get to show accounts in paid status, and you get to manage everything under one roof so to speak. Eventually, your credit will improve and when you finally pay off that loan you’ll feel like you have started all over again. Just be patient and follow the steps here and you’ll realize that it isn’t as difficult as it sounds.