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After you have been in financial hot water, you are often interested in improving your credit score.  The key to having good credit is to make smart financial decisions over a long period of time.  The best and most efficient way of improving your credit is to pay your bills in full and on time every month.  Even if your credit has been damaged by debt, or negatively influenced in the process of getting out of debt, being consistent in making your payments will improve your credit score over time.  It is important to realize that this does take time, but that as you remain dedicated in your efforts, your credit score will increase.  Also, rather than living day by day to increase your credit score, simply live to meet your needs and accomplish your financial goals, and your score will improve as a result.

Beyond this, you can either seek to repair your credit on your own, or hire a credit repair company to do it for you.  The most you can to do repair your credit is contact your credit agency and dispute anything on your credit score that you think is incorrect or inaccurate.  If there are dings on your credit report that do not match with your records, or that seem wrong, you must take the initiative to call the credit agency and register a complaint.  The credit agencies have 30 days, by law, to justify the mark on your score or they must remove it until they can prove its validity.  This law is helpful in clearing up any mistakes that may have been made on your credit report.  However, you cannot get legitimate credit dings off your score and neither can credit repair companies.  The most they can do, like you, is dispute any claims that may be erroneous.  If you do not have the time, or do not know how to dispute items on your credit report, it may be useful to work with a credit repair agency.  However, there are many credit repair agencies that claim to be able to change a poor credit score to a good credit score overnight.  As mentioned above, rebuilding good credit takes time and there is nothing instantaneous about it.  Despite what they may maintain, credit repair companies cannot create a new credit identity for you or magically make all your bad credit disappear, so stay away from companies that promise this.  If your credit score is suffering because of your debt situation, contact us today for a free consultation!