5 Tactics to Improve Your Credit Score This Year

Published on: 03 February 2022 Last Updated on: 12 September 2024

Inflation is up, money is tight, and your credit score is in the gutter. What a way to start the year!

Instead of wallowing in self-pity, it’s time to finally do something about your unfortunate credit score. This January, kick-off an improvement plan to improve your credit score by the time the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31.

5 Lucrative Ways Improve Your Credit Score:

1. Know What You’re Working With

You can’t fix a problem you can’t see. If you’ve been avoiding checking your credit score for fear of what you’ll find, get over yourself. Now is the time to set aside your pride and review the damage. Your credit score impacts nearly every financial move you make. Working to improve it now, before you consider shopping for a major purchase, can make your life easier.

Pull up your free annual credit report to review the data that’s been reported to the credit bureaus. If you’ve got missed payments, high credit utilization, or too many accounts, take note. Then consider your overall score. Anything under 700 should be seen as an opportunity to improve. Now you’re ready to create your action plan.

2. Take Action Daily

You can make measured improvements on your credit score just by being mindful of your daily actions. If you struggle with overspending, pause before you swipe your card. Consider whether the purchase you’re about to make meets your goals and if you’ve got the money to repay the balance.

If the answer to either is no, resist the urge to buy. Instead, save up for want-based purchases so you can treat yourself without sacrificing financial security.

In an e-commerce age, you probably can’t eliminate plastic from your purchasing repertoire entirely, but you can be smarter about it. Familiarize yourself with different payment options like a credit builder card. These cards are secured by a funds transfer or initial deposit. Every time you pay your bill, your good payment history is reported to the credit bureaus. Over time, this great track record can improve your score.

3. Get Your Budget on Point

The way you spend often dictates how well you can keep up with the demands of your bills. While everyone has core expenses across housing, food, and transportation, it’s essential to manage one’s variable expenses. Sit down with the last two months of your spending history to identify budget busters and trends you’d like to address.

If dining out is a sore spot for your budget, create a system to help you indulge with purpose. Set a dollar amount that you can spend without dipping into cash reserves dedicated for other expenses. Think about why you like to spend in this category and whether there’s another way to fill your cup.

If your real desire is to spend time with friends, pivot to hosting a small potluck dinner once a month. Adjust your spending toward this event, and you just may find you like the results better than gathering at restaurants.

4. Dispute Inaccuracies

Your comprehensive credit report may be telling lies about you. If your careful review identifies inaccuracies in your report, it’s in your best interest to dispute them. Late payments are one of the biggest dings on your credit report. If you’re a reliable payer, it’s only fair to fix any errors in your report.

First, reach out to the company reporting the information to the bureaus to dispute your account status. Then report the error to the credit reporting bureaus. You’ll need to include a dispute form and documentation supporting your case.

This process can take months to resolve, so stay the course on other credit-boosting activities while you wait. Inaccurate reports happen, so it’s important to review your credit report regularly so you can quickly address them.

5. Attack the Two Most Impactful Credit Factors

Put your energy into the most impactful parts of your credit score: on-time payments and credit utilization. Your payment history drives 35% of your credit score. If you have a history of late payments, you’re killing your score. Catch up on missed payments and create a system to help you manage your bills. Set up autopay for your core bills (rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance, etc.) so you can ensure that your obligations are covered.

The second most impactful area of your financial behavior is credit utilization, which makes up 30% of your score. Credit utilization — the percentage of your available credit that you’re using at any given time — signifies how well you manage money. Work to keep your utilization below 30% to earn a good mark from the credit bureaus.

If you can, request a credit limit increase to improve that percentage, but resist the urge to tap into it. Consider making payments toward your balance as you make changes to keep your utilization low.

Creating the Accountability to Stay on Track

Any goal is more achievable when you breathe life into it. So create a vision board of your credit score goals and post it where you can see it daily. Talk about your plan with your friends and family to create an accountability team for your new credit-building habits. Monitor your progress regularly and course-correct if you need to.

The more you interact with your plan and assess your behavior, the more likely you are to be successful. Who knows? After a year of hard work, sacrifice, and intentional effort, your score could even climb from poor to exceptional.

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A Comprehensive Guide to Law Firm Finance in 2021

Have you been practicing law for a while? Today, many lawyers are stepping into the entrepreneurship world to open their law firms. Indeed, practicing under experienced lawyers gives a lot of exposure but having autonomy at work is equally vital. You can choose clients and legal cases of your choice and practice in a particular area. Likewise, you can enjoy flexibility and freedom, make decisions, and set your priorities. However, most lawyers don’t understand that starting a law firm is more than practicing law. Apart from legal responsibilities, you have to recruit people, market the law firm, and most importantly, manage finances. You have to document a long-term financial strategy to stay on top of your daily budget and earn profits. At the same time, you have to manage taxes, acquire funding, handle invoices, and much more. To help you get started, here is a comprehensive guide to law firm finance in 2021. 1. Create a Long-Term Financial Strategy: As a law firm owner, you have to establish a vision for the firm’s future. Do you picture a multi-lawyer firm handing corporate clients? Or you want to step into litigation or criminal law? Having a clear idea of long-term goals will help in creating a well-defined financial strategy. You can start putting funds aside for expansion from the beginning. Likewise, you have to keep up with numbers, forecasts, and budgets to manage the day-to-day cash flow. You have to ensure the business has enough funds to secure new clients and take cases to trial. After all, not every case settles. However, if you don’t have a knack for numbers, consider learning the ropes. You can look for virtual programs such as MSF online to avoid the hassle of traveling to college. After all, online education gives students a lot of flexibility, motivating them to keep learning. As for your law firm, it will help in managing finances efficiently while practicing law. 2. Get Access to Funding: Although you are stepping into a service business, you will need a hefty amount of capital and cash to start a law firm. From office rentals, conference rooms, stationary costs to staffing – you will come across a long list of expenses. Therefore, look for ways to obtain capital for your law firm. Here are some of the options you can explore. Savings: Whenever starting a business, make sure a small chunk of the capital comes from personal savings. That way, you will keep working in the game because you won’t be liable to another person when things get tough. Bank Loan: You can start with a few thousand dollars, but more capital gives lawyers enough runway to make the business profitable. Hence, if your savings don’t seem sufficient, opt for a bank loan or open a credit line to raise capital. Startup Incubators: Today, many incubators connect new business owners with funding to get going. Often, they use their contacts with angel investors to fund new businesses or seek help from venture capitalists. 3. Manage Taxes: Most attorneys operating law firms aren’t aware of legal obligations. As a result, taxes hit them in surprising ways. You might get a call from Internal Revenue System (IRS) or a hefty fine for missing the deadline. Similarly, many lawyers have difficulty categorizing deductibles. You might think everything is deductible, whereas your tax liability is higher than you predicted. These pitfalls not only halt business operations but are super pricey too. Hence, consider bringing an experienced tax specialist on board. However, if you don’t have a budget for additional hiring, learn about the taxation policies yourself. It doesn’t mean you have to go back to school; instead, look for online programs. You can opt for an online LLM tax program and learn from the comfort of your home and office. It will help you plan for tax liability, closing doors for IRS audit, and incorrect tax deductions. 4. Streamline Invoicing & Payment System: Usually, lawyers have different payment policies. When dealing with corporate clients, they charge a monthly fee and have separate legal charges for cases. On the other hand, they don’t charge when fighting for accident victims until the negligent party’s proven guilty. Despite having different payment policies, you must have an appropriate invoicing and payment system at the firm. You can leverage savvy software to automate the firm’s finances. Moreover, record your income correctly. If you charge a retainer fee, treat it as an advance payment and track its spending on every case. Similarly, avoid recording any income in your financials until you have won the case. It will give you a realistic view of the firm’s financial position, making sure you are on the right track. Besides this, don’t forget to set flexible billing terms with the clients and discuss everything upfront to avoid issues later. 5. Prepare Budgets, Reports, & KPIs: Having a budget is imperative for your law firm’s financial success. You have to estimate your expenses and the revenue you expect to earn. It will give you a solid idea of how much you should work to make the business profitable. Likewise, you have to prepare financials to catch a glimpse of profitability. Well, to begin effective financial reporting, you have to start with the bookkeeping basics. You have to record all financial transactions and maintain a separate account for every client. After this, you can prepare an income statement and balance sheet to determine the law firm’s equity. Also, create a cash flow statement to understand how much cash goes out and comes into the business. All these financials will be a brilliant source of insights about your law firm. You can spot trends, overcome weaknesses, and capitalize on your strengths to make the business more profitable. Final Thoughts: Every successful law firm considers numbers and data first. You have to create an excellent financial plan with a growth vision to make your law firm successful. Similarly, you have to manage cash flow, follow a detailed billing process, and raise sufficient capital. As you progress forward, a strong financial position will unfold new growth opportunities. You can tap into new practice areas, offer more services, and expand your team. Read Also: How To Choose A Practice Management Software For Your Law Firm How Do Law Firms Help Companies with Their Real Estate Issues?

Can I Convert My 401k To A Gold IRA?

Retirement might seem like a long way away for a lot of us out there. Truthfully, it’s easy to want to put that sort of thing off and not have to worry about saving for it right now. However, this is typically not going to be the best move. Most experts recommend that we start to save or invest for our retirement years as early as we can. There are a few ways to go about that, though. Considering all of the different types of retirement savings and investment accounts that are out there, it can be hard to make that choice. That’s even more true as we see a ton of advertisements and advice columns out there that talk about the various options and how amazing each of them is. How are we supposed to choose, right? Sure, there are articles like this one, but for now, we’ll stick to one thing – a deep dive into gold IRA accounts. What Is A Gold IRA? Although they might seem like a relatively new invention, the truth of the matter is that people have been using gold as an investment for centuries – maybe even thousands of years. So, the fact that they’ve adapted to our modern economic structure should come as no surprise. First, though, let’s cover what IRAs are. An IRA (individual retirement arrangement) is a type of savings account that offers the holder some sort of tax benefits. That will vary depending on the type of IRA, of course. Self-directed, Roth, and traditional are just a few examples, and each of them has its own rules and regulations as well. Now, when it comes to the question of can I convert my 401k to a gold IRA, the answer is yes – but there are a few steps involved that you’ll want to familiarize yourself with. One thing to be aware of is that a gold or precious metals IRA is simply a self-directed one that is dedicated specifically to that asset. All sorts of things are eligible to be placed into them. For example, bullion and coins that fall under the requirement of gold percentage can both be added to one. However, a necklace or ring made out of precious metals wouldn’t be eligible. If you want help sorting that out, you can always talk with your broker to see what can work. How Does The Conversion Work? With that bit of background information out of the way, we can turn our attention to how the actual conversion works. One of the first steps that you’ll want to be aware of is the fact that you’ll need a broker and/or custodian. In this context, that’s just an organization that will hold onto your physical gold for you and keep the account. You can find out a bit more as far as how that works here, https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GAL =r&linkaccess=abs&issn=07300743& a8, although if you reach out to potential custodians to talk with them, they can probably explain it as well. They’re a crucial component of turning gold investments into an IRA, though, so don’t forget this part of the equation. From there, though, what should we do? Well, you’ll probably want to take inventory of your current financial situation as a whole. Think about how much money you want to take out of your 401(k) to actually do the conversion. Depending on how long your employer has offered the 401(k) and how much you and they both contribute, this exact amount could vary a lot. Ideally, you won’t entirely drain your 401(k) to open a gold IRA, but some people do. Just remember that the goal is to diversify your financial holdings and to give you an opportunity to have an asset that acts as a hedge against inflation. Once you’ve decided on how much you want to convert, you can start to initiate the process of purchasing your precious metals in whatever form you want. Whether that’s as coins or bullion or something else entirely, as long as it’s eligible according to your custodian, you should be good to go! Thankfully, it’ll act pretty much the same as any other individual retirement arrangement, with yearly limits to how much you can contribute to it. There will still be taxes, of course. It’s not too hard to figure out, though, and your custodian/broker will be able to assist when needed. Why Convert, Though? One of the major questions that most people still have is why they should convert their 401(k) into an IRA in the first place. It’s certainly worth pondering, but the answer is pretty simple. As you can see here, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4148028, a lot of it has to do with the fact that we’re currently facing an economic recession. Combating it isn’t easy for a lot of us consumers, unfortunately. There are a few ways, though – most of them involve utilizing hedges against inflation in some way. Gold is a major hedge because its value isn’t diminished by things like paper currency losing buying power. So, that’s probably the main reason that it’s widely considered worthwhile to do this conversion process. However, there’s also the fact that in investing in general, it’s not a great idea to put all of your eggs into one basket. Keeping your assets diverse is critical, especially for something as important as your retirement. Again, even if it seems a long time away, it’ll creep up on you faster than you realize. We all deserve a comfortable and happy retirement, especially after spending years being valuable members of the workforce. Saving for that time of our lives is super important. Consider converting part of your 401(k) plan into an IRA if you know it won’t impact your current financial status in a negative way. As long as you’ve done your research and you know what you’re getting yourself into, there really isn’t much of a reason not to do it – at least when looking at it from an investor’s standpoint. Read Also: Is Investment Bankers/Brokers/Service A Good Career Path In 2021? 5 Reasons Why Bitcoins Are Considered Reliable Investments 5 New Assets To Diversify Your Investments In 2021

How A Business Loan Helps Business People In 2023

If you want your business to get successful then you should get your hands on a small business loan right now. If you are running out of money, getting a small business loan may be the right choice for you as it can help you manage your finances. When you are running out of money it can be a very annoying situation and it can be very troublesome for you as well in the long run. That is why if you want to avoid being in such as situation then you should do a business loan because it is going to help you out a lot in this regard. In this article, we will discuss how a business loan helps business people in 2023. So keep on reading to find out more information below about the business loan. Top 4 Ways A Business Loan Helps Business People 1. More Funding The first benefit that you are going to get after getting a business loan is that you will get more funding and it is a Universal desire for every business as well. So if you want your business to succeed in the long run then you can promote yourself and become very popular on social media as a business as well. If you want to have more about the unity to promote your business then it means that you need to get some more capital so that you can invest that in your business. However, if you don't have the money then it means that you need to find out a way so you can get your hands on more capital that you can inject into your business and then make a lot of profit in the long run. For that, you need to get your hands on a business loan and it is going to be very beneficial for you in the long run so that you can fund your business. 2. Flexible The next thing that you need to do is to be more flexible and satisfy the business and financial needs of your business. You need to take care of your business because you have started it like from day one from scratch. It is like your baby that you need to take care of and that is why you need to keep injecting more money so that it can become a flexible business in the long run. For that, you can take a business loan, and then you can use it for different purposes it is going to be flexible money that you can implement anywhere you want in any operation of your business. 3. No Liability The next benefit that you are going to get after getting a business loan is that it is not going to have any liability on you. There is no requirement for you to have Collateral and if you don't have it then it is not going to be a problem. Many financial organizations are going to give you a business loan get in touch with them if you are looking for a fine answering option for your business. 4. Easy Access The next reason why you should get your hands on a business loan is that it is going to give you very easy access to money. You can get a fixed amount of money and then you are going to inject this money into your business every month. It is going to have a lot of benefits because there is going to be a constant cash flow that is going in your business and then it is going to be very profitable. Additional: Benefits of NBFC Business Loans Top 5 Types of Startup Business Loans Help Your Business With A Government Loan What Are the Alternatives for Small Business Startup Loans?

5 Tactics to Improve Your Credit Score This Year

5 Lucrative Ways Improve Your Credit Score:

1. Know What You’re Working With

2. Take Action Daily

3. Get Your Budget on Point

4. Dispute Inaccuracies

5. Attack the Two Most Impactful Credit Factors

Creating the Accountability to Stay on Track

2 Reasons to Invest in GoldBullion Even If You’ve Never Invested in an Asset Before

Core Banking Solutions: A Game Changer?

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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A Comprehensive Guide to Law Firm Finance in 2021

Can I Convert My 401k To A Gold IRA?

How A Business Loan Helps Business People In 2023

5 Tactics to Improve Your Credit Score This Year

5 Lucrative Ways Improve Your Credit Score:

1. Know What You’re Working With

2. Take Action Daily

3. Get Your Budget on Point

4. Dispute Inaccuracies

5. Attack the Two Most Impactful Credit Factors

Creating the Accountability to Stay on Track

Share this Article

2 Reasons to Invest in GoldBullion Even If You’ve Never Invested in an Asset Before

Core Banking Solutions: A Game Changer?

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

Leave a Reply

Popular

Follow Us

Recent

Related