The first time I checked my credit score, I had a 520. In case you're not familiar with how credit scores work, 520 is pretty bad. With a 520 credit score you can't get a cell phone, let alone a car or home loan. That score haunted my life for a while, until I decided to get it taken care of.

I had to make some changes to improve my credit but it actually didn't take that long. Within about 18 months I had credit that was pretty solid. This article will teach you to do what I did - it will teach you how to quickly fix your bad credit.

Before you can fix your bad credit, you need to see what you're up against. That means that the first thing you need to do is pull a credit report. This will help you to see if there are any mistakes and will also show you the negative things that are bringing your score down.

In my case, I was using an extremely high percentage of my available credit card debt. The limits on my cards were low - only $750 and $500. However, out of the $1250 that I had available, I was using about $1200. This is a huge no-no if you want to have solid credit. Using a lot of your available credit kills your score and I was using over 95% of it.

I was also way behind on my payments for both of my cards and that was absolutely ruining my score. Making late payments on credit cards is BAD and I was doing that - I had to change that before my score started to rise.

I saved up some money and paid those suckers off. Once I had done that, I got a boost of almost 100 points in my score. Yes, it can affect your credit that much to get rid of your debt. Your use of your available debt is one of the larger factors.

If you can increase the limits of your cards, it will really help your score, as long as you're using more debt. For example, over the last few years I have worked the limits of my cards up to over $20,000. If I run a balance of $1200 now, it barely does anything to my credit. That's because that's only 6% of my available credit - not 95% like it used to be.

In other words, you can change your credit score very quickly by raising your limits and paying down your debt.

To boost your credit score, you really need to have revolving credit, and you need to use it. People often think that since they have a car loan or a home loan, they are building credit. This won't do nearly as much good as it would to get some credit cards and use them.

Back in the day before I had credit, it was really difficult to get credit cards. I couldn't get approved for any. I had to take out two secured credit cards to get things going. I basically had to put down $200 into a mini savings account and then I paid those cards off. Pretty soon I was able to get real cards. Once a credit card sees that someone else took a risk on you, they are more likely to. The on-time payments also boost your credit score.

If you want this to work, you absolutely have to pay your bills on time. Skipping payments will hurt you and paying on time will help you. Commit to yourself to never miss another payment. If you need to learn more, read credit cards for people with no credit and bad credit credit cards.

In order to stay ahead of your debt, I have prepared some simply advice. Here it is: Commercial mortgage loans are WAY better than no credit check personal loans. Why? Because the interest rates are way lower. Home loans are WAY better than auto loans. Why? The interest rates are way lower.

I want you to do simply comparisons so that you get rid yourself of the highest interest debt you have now, and then you'll have more power to get rid of the rest later. As a general rule, bank loans for people with bad credit are much better than private ones.