Do It Yourself Credit And Debt Repair

By Sylvia Rolfe
The first step you need to take in creating a better credit score is to keep careful track of your spending and your income for an entire month. What you want to see is where you are spending your money and what money is actually coming into the home. Starting with this knowledge will make it that much easier to build a credit repair plan that will work for you. Now that you have your one month budget in front of you, you need to take a real hard look at things. Are you spending more than you bring in in a month? Are you living above your means and holding unacceptable levels of debt? Are you using credit to pay for day to day purchases such as groceries or gas? Answering these questions will help you take your first steps to rebuilding and restoring your credit. If you are living within your means, you are well ahead of most people who are not living within their own means. What about if your spending exceeds your monthly income? In this case you need to look at how much you are exceeding your income and find ways to reduce your spending to keep it under that amount Easy ways to trim the spending include eating at home. Too many of us are guilty of ordering in or eating out when we don't feel like cooking, even though our budgets don't allow it. Are you spending a large amount on getting a daily coffee from Starbucks each morning? Start bringing your own coffee instead. Are you eating off the lunch cart? Start brown bagging it. Are you spending too much on things around the house like the cable bill, the internet bill or the phone bill? See what items you can get rid of. The average house hold spends almost $200 a month on those three things combined. Do you really need all those channels? Do you really need the long distance? Or would you be better off with a pay as you go long distance plan. Finding ways you can cut these bills can free up some of the money in the household. The next step is reducing necessary bills. Are you spending a lot on electricity each month? Make sure you UNPLUG appliances not in use. Having them plugged in still pulls energy whether or not you're even using it. Turn off what isn't being used and switch everything you can to energy saving products, from light bulbs to major appliances. Just taking stock of your expenditures versus your income can go a long way to reestablishing your credit and allowing you to rebuild your credit score. You may find you are paying for a lot of things you really don't need and by removing them make it so you are no longer living day to day on your credit cards. For more tips, click here! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sylvia_Rolfe Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5620519