Personal Finance Tools that Can Boost Your Credit Score
by Kevin Silver
There are no shortcuts to improving your credit – it’s a time-consuming process regardless of which path you take. But the right personal finance tools can help you get there in one piece.
The following personal budget tools and apps are mostly free and easy to use, and should help get your bad credit trending in the right direction.
Intuit Credit Karma
Knowledge is power, and Intuit Credit Karma empowers budgeters with a free estimate of their credit score each month.
The first step to improve your credit score is knowing what that number is. Once you sign up for a free Intuit Credit Karma account, you’ll be able to monitor your credit score, see all your debts, and monitor inquires on your credit reports all from your fingertips.
Intuit Credit Karma even offers handy insight into why your credit score has gone up or down, and the steps you can take to fix any problems or avoid your credit score dropping even further.
Mint
Mint is an online personal finance tool that provides a free credit score report alongside convenient budgeting and bill-paying addons.
You’ll need an account to access (yes, it’s free) Mint, which allows you to overview all your finances in one hub – your debts, bills, and transactions. You can even set your monthly budgets, helping you discover new creative ways to save.
If you’re struggling with personal finance management, Mint’s ability to monitor debts and track bills will be invaluable in boosting your credit score over time.
YNAB (You Need a Budget)
This is hands-down our favourite of all the personal finance tools. You Need a Budget is an all-in-one budgeting app that can help you pay debts off, improve your credit score, and eventually build wealth.
The app assists users in creating a ‘zero-sum budget’, which is a budgeting technique that involves giving every dollar you earn a purpose, and living off last month’s income. It also includes all the budgeting software and tracking tools that can help you stay on top of all your expenses and bills.
What sets YNAB apart from other personal finance apps is you can use the app to really lock down on your spending and pay down debt. With consistent use of the app’s main features, you should see your debts decrease and your credit utilization ratio drop, reversing your downward spiraling credit scores.
YNAB is free to try for 34 days, and then costs $6.99 monthly thereafter. But the nominal fee is worth the price of admission as a healthy credit score can get you better credit card rates, loan rates, insurance rates and more financial privileges, saving you tons of cash over the long term.
If your credit score has bottomed out and you’re about to embark on the long road to rebuilding your credit score and trust, a short term, poor credit personal loan from Magical Credit can help diversify your credit, prove to lenders you’re a responsible borrower, and cover any small debts from past financial mishaps.
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