If your credit score isn’t as high as you’d prefer, this can be an issue for you in several areas — from an inability to obtain many types of loans to multiple others. However, there are also a number of simple steps you can take to go about improving this situation for yourself, many of which are entirely realistic even if you’re in a rough spot financially.

At 1st Choice Money Center, we offer a number of short-term loans that are often ideal for helping boost your credit score. We offer Utah clients options like signature loans, personal loans and other alternatives to harmful payday loans, which we refuse to provide. What are some of the ways you can utilize funds like these, plus take related approaches that will help boost your credit score? In this multi-part blog series, we’ll go over several.

Strategic Approach to Paying Credit Card Balances

One of the first and most straightforward ways to begin boosting your credit score is to pay off any outstanding credit card balances you may have. This can be payments for items like doctor’s visits, over-the-counter purchases and more.

However, this involves more than just throwing whatever money you have at balances randomly. Rather, you should be looking at which of your balances comes with the highest interest rates. For example, you could pay the minimum on your other balances and put more money toward eliminating whatever debt is associated with a credit card that has higher interest rates. Not only will this help save you money in the long-term — due to the fact that you’ll end up paying less in interest fees over time — but it will also help give your credit score a boost. The more you reduce what you owe, the better your score will be.

Become an Authorized User

If a close friend or family member of yours has very good credit, they may be willing to add you to their primary credit card account as an authorized user. This means that you can easily benefit from their excellent score, even if your own isn’t quite up to par. However, it’s important to remember that if they have any late or missed payments on the account, this will be reflected in your own score too — so it may not be a permanent solution, and the person authorizing you needs to be confident nothing will go wrong.

Request Higher Credit Limits

One key variable used in credit score calculation is credit utilization, or how much of your available credit you’re utilizing at any one time. A common method for improving this figure is to request higher limits with the credit cards and other financial accounts that you have — which allows you to charge more on them without having a negative effect on your credit score, since it looks like you’re using less of your total available credit.

In parts two and three of our series, we’ll go over some further tips here. For more on how to improve your credit score, or to learn about any of our installment loans for Utah clients, speak to our team at 1st Choice Money Center today.