Have you heard of Pete D’Arruda? He’s a personal finance consultant with over $300,000 in available credit from his 25 visas, mastercards, and individual store, airlines and gas cards and a close to $400,000 home-equity line of credit.
According to D’Arruda, he charges everything from coffee to the rent for his office space on credit cards – but pays his bills on time. He enjoys hundreds of thousands of miles and points, numerous discounts and even freebies from retail stores and vacation spots, waived annual fees on some credit cards and better interest rates on insurance and car and home loans by just using his credit card. Yeah, it’s like getting paid for having some good credit score (which is in his case, a FICO credit score in the 810-815 range).
For other people, even a few hundreds of available in credit line is disastrous. I’ve known some people who loves splurging and mismanage their finances with just $500 worth of credit. But D’Arruda is something, right? He manages his finances well, paying all his bills on time (sometimes he pays twice a month just to make sure that his balances are in order).
I’m still new here in the US and without a long-term credit history, my credit score is not that good yet. I’m hoping to improve my scores by following some tips that’s I had read and will now be sharing with you. If you think that any of these don’t make sense (or even wrong), I’d appreciate if you could point me to the right direction. Here they go:
Tips for Improving Your Credit Score – Fast
- Get a credit card if you don’t have one.
- Add an installment loan to the mix (can be personal loans, auto, mortgages and student loans).
- Pay down your credit cards.
- Use your cards lightly – limit your charges to upto 30% of your card limit. Getting balances below 10% is even better.
- Use your old credit cards – the issuers may decide to close the accounts or stop updating them to the credit bureaus if you don’t use them. Remember when it comes to credit history, the older, the better.
- Dispute old negatives (unjust charges or error.
- Push for the correction of significant errors on your credit report.
Are you contented with your current credit score? Do you think it’s possible that you’ll be the next Pete D’Arruda when it comes to credit lines?
