Bad Credit

It’s true: Millions of Americans have bad credit. Luckily, it’s also true that millions of Americans build and improve their credit histories and end up with...See more » It’s true: Millions of Americans have bad credit. Luckily, it’s also true that millions of Americans build and improve their credit histories and end up with decent, good, or even excellent credit. Read more about how to live with bad credit in this section of CreditScoreAide.com (but be sure to also read our Credit Repair information to find out how you can make bad credit a temporary condition!). It’s not fun having bad credit (who wants to be known as the guy or gal who has terrible credit?) Even worse, bad credit is expensive. People who have bad credit pay more for many things, including: credit cards, mortgages, insurance, car loans, even mobile phone contracts. Here’s a simple example of how people with bad credit are treated. Assume you are buying a new home and you need to borrow $200,000. If your FICO score is 610, here’s the loan you might get (based on rates available in 2008): * Interest Rate: 9.454% * Monthly Payment: $1,675 Now imagine that you were able to raise your FICO score just 50 points (to 660). Here’s the loan you might qualify for: * Interest Rate: 6.740% * Monthly Payment: $1,296 Yikes! The person with the bad credit score pays $379 more each month! That’s a total of over $4500 more each year, and over $136,000 more over the life of the loan. Clearly, it is important to fix bad credit. And remember, the same thing happens to folks with bad credit who get credit cards, car loans, insurance, and other items such as mobile phones. It is expensive to have bad credit. Learn more about dealing with bad credit, and how you can improve your credit score by reading the articles on CreditScoreAide.com. And, if you want to take some easy steps to improve your credit, call us or contact us for a free consultation to see how we can help you improve your credit.See less »