Know Your Credit

People often have old debt with high-interest rates that may have seemed like a good deal in the past, but things can change. After improving a credit score, getting a raise, or just budgeting differently, you may find those rates are higher than you deserve. This could be costing you more and more money each month! 

• Know your credit score. Use a free service like Credit Karma to check your credit, and make sure there are no unauthorized accounts in your name. Study your open accounts and try to take care of any old debt that you may have forgotten about or missed.
• Set up payment reminders or automatic payments where available. A useful method is to set up an automatic payment for the minimum amount so you never miss a payment. Then, make a separate payment on top of that with what extra money you have when the due date actually comes. Check to make sure your institution allows multiple payments over a certain amount of days, some may have restrictions.
• Pay more than the minimum payment to reduce overall debt. This is one of the most important things to help lower your total amount paid in interest and get yourself out of debt faster.
• Have credit cards, but manage them responsibly. Credit cards are essential to building credit, but you have to make sure you are using them wisely and not treating them as free money. Check out our Great Rate card if you plan on keeping a balance, or are looking to consolidate debt. You can transfer balances from your high-rate cards to the Great Rate card for $0 and have a 1.99% APR on balance transfers for 12 months.*
• Clear up any collection accounts to stop further negative reporting from hurting your credit.
• Set up an account review with FFCCU and we can look at all of your finances, help you get everything in order, and maybe even save you some money!

Set up an account review and we can sit down with you to look over your finances, and see what we could do to help. Whether you have a car loan, a mortgage, accounts with multiple institutions, student loans, whatever—we could help! We’ve done it before, many times. Read about some of our success stories here.

*Rate is good for 12 months after first balance transfer occurs. After the introductory period ends, the Variable APR applies. The 1.99% APR applies to balance transfers only, not new purchases. Learn about our VISA Credit Card Rates and Interest Charges here.

Posted In: FFCCU Services