How To Achieve A Perfect Credit Score
Achieving a perfect credit score comes down to making payments on time, keeping balances low, and diversifying accounts.
In the United States maintaining a good credit score is important. Good credit scores give individuals more access to things like mortgages, car loans, and the best credit cards. The higher one’s credit score is, the better rates and perks that person will have access to; thus it’s an exceedingly advantageous endeavor to aspire towards achieving a perfect score.
Any credit score over 800 is considered “exceptional” or “near perfect,” according to the finance gurus at CNBC. However, on average, Americans generally have a score that hovers in the low to mid-700 range. That’s not terrible.
Those with a credit score of 700 or above generally can get decent rates on things like mortgages and car loans and typically don’t have any trouble securing credit when they need it. But to get the best rates, individuals need to have scores that exceed that magic 800 tier.
So what’s the secret? How does one get a score above 800? Or better yet, how does one get their score above 800 and keep it there?
The good news is that the answer is pretty simple. The bad news is that it might take some spending or credit utilization adjustments to get someone over the 800 hump. But finance experts say, achieving a near-perfect credit score is an absolutely viable thing to aspire to.
First things first, pay attention to when your bills are due! If there is one important takeaway from this article, this is it. Make sure that your debts are paid on time because on-time payments count towards a huge chunk of your score, about 35%.
Thus, If you are a whiz at making payments on time your credit score will be rewarded with a huge boost. Conversely, falling behind on payments and not making the on time will cause a credit score to sink faster than the Titanic. To safeguard oneself against forgetting when a bill is due, make yourself a spreadsheet, or invest in a monthly bill planner.
The second thing to keep track of when trying to cross the perfect threshold is how much debt you are carrying over from month to month in revolving accounts. A good rule of thumb is to make sure the total balance you owe in debt doesn’t exceed 30% of your total available credit, but honestly the less you owe, the better it will be for your credit score. To keep your rolling balances as low as possible, a good rule to live by is to never charge more than you can afford to pay off in one shot.
Other key factors to keep in mind on the quest to attain a just about perfect credit score are the types of accounts you have open and the duration of time that you’ve had those accounts. A diverse array of accounts that you’ve had for a long time shows lenders that you are credit-fluent and responsible. To tie it all together, achieving a perfect credit score comes down to paying debts on time, paying them off in full, and keeping a diverse array of accounts over many years.
