Bankruptcy does lead to a crippling situation. Assets are more likely to get washed out and debts will still haunt you years after. Next, you will observe that after bankruptcy proceedings your credit standing drops to God knows how low. But hey enough with lingering on your dread, it’s time to pick yourself up from the slump your in. Think your bankruptcy as a major reboot, a fresh start to rebuild and to live wisely. There are ways to get oneself credit repaired after bankruptcy. It all takes a major unlearning of bad habits and a few learning of good ones.
Change Your Bad Habits
First thing that you have to unlearn are bad habits. Overspending is one big mistake that many people are fondly tempted to commit. I remember an alarming news in the past where credit cards companies are targeting college students. The consequence is mounting debts for a no-wage earning adolescents. Even earning professionals are not exempt from making poorly thought of decisions. Impulse buying can be so damaging. The remedy is to plan out your monthly expenses and sticking to it. Setting aside 10% of your income as savings can be a source of emergency funds or become a tool for you to buy assets in the future.
Next rule to learn is “study and examine all investment ventures”. Majority of foreclosures occurred because of bad investment decisions. Many had been enticed by sub-prime lending, which many people can sustain under a healthy economy. But when recession crept in and brought job loss and skyrocketing interest rates, that’s when the investment collapsed. The most hurtful part comes when the property was acquired thru a loan. It ended with people losing their asset and gaining more liabilities with the bank. The lesson here is never enter into a volatile investment using borrowed money.
Third, ants teach us a valuable lesson of having contingency plan during tough times. Job loss wouldn’t have been too difficult if there was about 6 months worth of savings set aside to tide one’s way until you find another job. Ants teach us to save up for the rainy day. Maybe one should learn from that moving forward.
After learning from your mistakes, it’s time to get oneself moving to getting your credit worthiness back up. Bankruptcy does deliver such a huge blow to your credit score and it sticks on your credit report for years. However, this is not a dead end but just a temporary road block. You could get credits after a bankruptcy. Here are the ways to reestablish your credit worthiness.
Being informed at the rudiments of credit scoring is a powerful tool. Knowing the considerations to generate your score puts you at the advantage as you would know what efforts are needed to get your score up.
“Payment History” forms 35% of your credit score. That means you have to start and continue to be a faithful payor to your creditors.
“Amounts Owed” is weighted to be 30% of your score. You should at least keep your outstanding balance to the least possible amount. The higher one’s outstanding due the lower the score.
“Length of your Credit History” forms 15% of your credit score. The shorter you are able to repay and close the loan the better it affects your credit standing.
“New Credits” are recently approved loans or credit lines. Having just a few would be best. 10 percent of the credit score is taken from this category.
“Types of Credit Used” is about the credit variation you are involved with. A mix of secured credit cards, student loans and extra loans like buy now pay later increase your score. This category forms 10 percent of your credit score.
What To Do After Bankruptcy
Now how do you work on these categories? First, get a secured credit card with a nominal interest rate. Since Bankruptcy will prohibit you possessing an unsecured credit card, a secured credit card will be your tool to work on all factors. Might be scary at first since most bankruptcy is due to credit card misuse but I tell you, this is your way to recovery as well. Just remember what you learned from your mistake. This time, use the 35/40-day no-interest period on your card and zero out your debts. Another trick is to bill something on the card and pay it off shortly. This will do good on your payment history and the amounts owed.
Next, get other credit sources. This will be for the types of credits used, payment history and amounts owed. You may want to consider having a short-term loan like a student loan or a bad credit loan that has a negotiable interest rate. By paying these loans religiously, you would definitely get good points for the above mentioned factors.
Fourth, never close any zero-balance accounts. They do not pose any risk for you but instead they work wonders for your credit report. It would indicate you having a wide number of credit used, a good payment and credit history.
Having a good business relationship with your lenders would work to your advantage. This would allow you chances of renegotiating your terms at a time when you are in a tight situation. This would also work both ways as the lenders are guaranteed of continued payment and you reduce the risk of having a bad remark on your credit report.
Lastly, keeping an eye to the entries that get sent to the credit bureau is a good thing to do. It would be best you are subscribed monthly to one credit bureau report and get a copy of the other two credit reports annually. Or better yet you can subscribe to TrueCredit for under $20/month and get real time monitoring from all three major credit bureaus.
EasyBadCreditRepair.com