How can I raise my credit score 100 points?

100 points? Wow. Ambitious.

Where you’re starting at makes a big difference at how difficult it will be to raise your score 100 points. Also, if you have a very high balance to credit limit ratio on your credit cards it will be difficult. Let’s do two scenarios.

Scenario #1 - Credit Score is low because of high credit card balances

This was my case before my credit went to crap. I had no late payments, but pretty high balances on the credit cards I did have open. By paying down your credit card balances, you can significantly bump your score. If you have a 640 or above credit score, you could use a site like Lending Club to get a loan to pay off your credit cards. This would result in a fixed, term-loan, but would pay off your revolving credit card debt and your score would likely skyrocket.

Scenario #2 - My credit report is bad. I’ve got collections accounts, bankruptcy, etc

If you have a very poor credit report in terms of late payments, collections accounts, or bankruptcy, to raise your score 100 could happen very quickly or very slowly. Disputing items on your report is a way to go. You can do this yourself, or hire a legit credit repair firm to do this for you. A firm like Lexington Law will charge a fee to do this, but will handle the whole process for you. If you’re score is under 600 or especially under 500, you might want to look into this option to bump your score those 100 points you’re looking for.

As always, you should know where you stand in terms of your credit score. Only get your scores from MyFico. No one else really compares to their ease of use and you know you’re always getting real, exact, scores from all three credit agencies.

I'm 300K in debt. Gulp. I'm 24 and day traded away a fortune. Now I'm trying to crawl back to zero. Why not subscribe to my RSS feed and join me on this journey. You can also subscribe via e-mail. I appreciate tips and feedback! ~ DebtKid