What Steps Should I Take to Rebuild My Credit?

Hi, this is Roger Ghai and I wanted to talk this afternoon a little bit about rebuilding your credit and the types of steps that you can take to improve your credit after you file a bankruptcy. First and foremost is you probably can get, and I don’t get paid for this advertisement at all, but from Visa, they offer what’s known as a secured credit card. You can put a very minimum deposit down, $300 to $500 and as long as you’re paying on that credit card on a consistent basis, timely basis after you file the case, eventually, six months, eight months down the road, they’re going to offer you, so long as you’re employed, they’re going to actually offer you an unsecured credit card.
After you file the bankruptcy case, you want to make sure another way to improve your credit score is to keep any credit card balances low. Make sure that you go ahead and you pay your utility bills on time. If you have financed a vehicle after the filing of the bankruptcy case then, you want to make sure that you make those payments on a regular, timely, consistent basis. The same would apply for any more each payments. If you’ve been involved in the bankruptcy case and you decided to keep your home and you’ve reaffirmed the debt that is that you decided to continue to stay in the home and re-obligate yourself on that mortgage loan, make sure that you pay those mortgage payments on a very timely basis.
You have just gotten out of bankruptcy, you certainly, in order to improve your credit, you want to stay away from those payday loans. They charge astronomical rates, sometimes 20%, 30%, 40% or more on those rates and those loans. You definitely want to stay away from those. Many times, actually clients come to me because they, unfortunately, had to get involved with that or they felt that they needed to get involved with it and they find themselves many times in an impossible situation to get out of financially.
You also want to maintain, or if you don’t have a checking account, open up a checking account and after you filed for your Chapter 7 relief. The beauty about Chapter 7 actually is that it’s very easy to rebuild your credit so long as you’re responsible. If you’re gainfully employed and you do certain small things on a monthly basis that I’ve already mentioned and one of them can be as simple as just opening up a checking account, making sure that you don’t have overdraft fees every single month, those are the small things that are going to lead to tremendous improvements in your credit scores.
On a final note, I would say that generally speaking, after you’ve gotten yourself out of a bankruptcy and hopefully you’ve gotten your Chapter 7 bankruptcy discharged, don’t be an overspender, be an underspender. Save money for a rainy day. That’s the type of thinking that is eventually going to get you into good, solid, financial footing. If you have questions about anything that you might be able to do, following a bankruptcy discharge in order to improve your credit, call my office at 770-792-1000.