Spring Cleaning for your Credit

Camie Sims

March 1, 2011  •  1 Minute Read

Credit Basics

During the last long cold days of late winter, there is no better time to start making plans to fixing up your credit for spring.  This is the perfect time to evaluate your credit situation and start to make those needed improvements.

Why now? There are several reasons that late winter is the perfect time to work on your credit.

• First of all, you’re far enough away from Christmas to see exactly what holiday splurging did to your budget.  You should know exactly how much credit limit is left on your credit cards and you can start to make a plan to get the balances back down.
• Second, your income tax return is just around the corner.  Now’s the time to have a solid financial plan in place to make sure you use that return wisely.  You don’t want to blow it like last year on that home gym that never gets used.

Take the next several weeks to get the following check list taken care of.

• Get your annual credit report.
• Assess your loans to see which are the closest to be paid off and focus your extra cash on retiring that debt.  Those payments can then be used to payoff your high interest credit cards.
• Evaluate your budget to see what recurring bills you really don’t need and get rid of them.  Do you really need 5000 movie channels once the snow melts?!
• Appraise your stuff. Open an account with Ebay and turn all that stuff you thought you couldn’t live without, but never use, into CASH!

Get your plan in place before the snow melts and your attention is redirected to things like spring cleaning your house!  Who knows, you might find enough cash in your budget to get that convertible you have always been wanting.