10 Steps to Repairing Your Credit. #7 Is Extremely Important

3. Call Creditors To Increase Your Credit Line

Now, your debt to credit ratio is a factor in your credit report.  The higher the ratio, the more it negatively impacts your credit score.  For instance, if the combined credit limit on all your credit cards is $10,000 but you have a $5,000 combined balance on your cards, that’s a 50% utilization rate.  That’s not good.  You want to keep the utilization rate below 30%, ideally below 15%.  The easiest way to do this is to call your existing credit card companies and ask them to increase your credit.  If your $10,000 combined credit limit is increased to $20,000, your credit utilization rate is reduced from 50% to 25%, thereby raising your credit score.  You may not see a huge jump (60 points or more) from adjusting your utilization rate, but it is not uncommon to see jumps between 20-40 points just by increasing your credit line.