How can I improve my credit file?

indierocker85

Hi

My Equifax credit score is 611, which is really poor.

I am 28 years old, I have a default notice which Barclays applied back in May 2009, so I understand that is to come off on 19th of May 2015, so I think this may help.

I have debt on 5 credit cards, the collective limits total £9450, 4 of which have poor interest rates, however I am working hard to get them paid off. Only one of them has had a late payment, which was literally just the one single payment I missed, back in 2011.

What else can I be doing to improve it in the meantime?

I am on the electoral roll, I pay all my utility bills on time, I have given my cards to my wife to hide, to stop me running up anymore debt on them, and I'm now focused on paying them off.

Is there anything else I can be doing? I have just over a week until the default comes off, or things I should be avoiding? I am going to check my credit fie again at the end of the month, once the default should have gone. But in the meantime, what should I do?

Thrugelmir

You are doing all the right things. Stop worrying about your credit score. Times heals.

indierocker85

I know, but I just want a clean start with it all. It doesn't help I am also self employed too. Thank you though.

Malmo

There is no universal or central rating/score for UK individuals, so the Experian, Equifax & Callcredit / Noddle "ratings" & "scores" are not indicative of anything that lenders & services will see and use. Each lender assesses & scores applicants against their own criteria & scorecard to establish whether or not the applicant fits their target customer profile. So the scores that you refer to are not meaningful and should be ignored and you shouldn't worry about trying to improve these numbers.

Best to have a read of this MSE article for general tips & information about how credit profiling works and how to boost your general credit worthiness.

It sounds like you are doing a good job of gradually eliminating your debts, so well done. You are also on the electoral roll (which is a legal requirement in the UK anyway). Time is one of the crucial elements of improving or healing past credit issues, so keep paying off debts on time focusing on the cards with the highest interest rates first.

DCFC79

Don't focus on your score, the 5 cards could be going against you but your working on bring the balances down.

jamesd

There is one thing that you can do to help. Write down the interest rates and minimum payments for each card. Spend the minimum payment on the cheapest card and use that money to pay off more on the most expensive card. Repeat for the next cheapest to further increase the speed of paying off the highest rate card. Stop when you get to a card that is less than 3% cheaper.

You will pay interest on the purchases because you didn't pay off the balance in full. This is saved by the reduced interest you'll pay on the higher cost card. It's just like a balance transfer deal where the balance transfer fee is the interest on the purchase.

This works even better with balance transfer cards, where you can keep the 0% balance for as long as possible by preventing the minimum payments from reducing it.