Steps
- Pick a couple of banks that you wish to establish relationships with.
- Go to your bank that you primarily have your banking relationship with and open up a $500 savings account.
- Speak with your bank consultant and ask to open up a $500 line of credit secured off of your $500 savings account.
- Take the $500 line of credit and use it to open up another savings account at a different bank.
- Now ask consultant there to open up $500 secured line of credit based off of that savings account.
- Repeat until you have 3 - 5 outstanding secured bank loans.
- Make payments on the interest for the accounts.
- Having a cell phone, paying any and all bills on time (not including rent) will help build your credit, just as long as the bills are in your name and social security number.
- *It is a good idea to check the reporting policies of your cell phone company as some have policies of only reporting negative credit information.
Tips
- After 6 months your credit history will start to build up and your score will continue to climb also.
- Start at something small and work your way up, don't worry, as long as you have a little bit of good credit, you'll be fine.
Warnings
- You will need to make successful payments on all the accounts. In most cases this is just the interest. At any time though you can work your way backwards though to close the accounts once you have built up your credit.
- Don't go overboard on the credit cards and loans, they can help with your credit history, but only if you pay them on time!
- If you do not want to keep the secured cards, change to credit cards you like and get rid of the secured ones as soon as possible. Getting rid of a long-standing account will do damage to your credit. (Or ask the bank if it is possible to convert your current secured card(s) to unsecured.)
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