How To Improve Your Credit Score

The Motley Fool is almost always a good source of information about personal finance. This article "The Score Is Falling! The Score Is Falling!" explains the factors that go into your credit score. They also give a few good examples of how common actions would affect your score. Here are a few highlights. For an individual with a score in the low 700s:

• If you've had some late payments, paying all your bills for a month could raise your score by 20 point;
• Forgetting to pay all your bills for a month could cause a drop from around 700 to as low as 582;
• Going on a spending bender and maxing out your cards could cause a 70 point drop
• Transferring a large chunk of credit card debt to a lower-interest card (no effect, since the total amount of debt is the same).

Definitely worth a read. A related Fool article "That's Gonna Leave a Mark"presents some strategies to help you mess up an otherwise good credit record because of an unusual event (hey, stuff happens).