Rebuilding a Rough Credit Score #113

And by the way, that free money, right, yeah, exactly. So it seems like based on the numbers, almost every adult American was affected. Half of the adults in the United States, like half of anybody that had a Social

Security number was affected. So it's a big problem, right, And so we talked a while about freezing your credit and how important that is, and especially in light of essentially all of our information with the Capital One breach, with the Equifax breach, breaches everywhere, and I think there's

just breach fatigue essentially exactly. And that was episode thirty eight, by the way, that we talked about freezing your credit, and that is incredibly important because that is the only way to actually prevent fraudulent accounts for being opened in your name. Yeah, and now, because of the Equifax breach and laws that were put into place, credit freeze is free for us. So that's great. So everyone should be freezing their credit. But now at least you know what

we can get recompense. We can get a little bit of payout from the Equifax breach for our information just being leaked out there, and so people need to know about this. The website where you can go to make a claim is Equifax Breach Settlement dot com. We'll link to it in the show notes as well. Essentially, they allow you to choose from free credit monitoring or up to a hundred and twenty five dollars, but there's also a cap on the overall amount that Equifax is going

to pay under the settlement that they reached with the FTC. Yeah. Well it was seven million dollar payomp, but only a small percentage of that is actually going to us as those affected. So basically the more people that sign up and make that claim, well the payout decreases per person. Yeah, so it actually being is is actually there's a slim

chance of that happening. Yeah, it's unlikely for sure. But and the other thing is that people instead of choosing the bucks, you can choose four years of free credit monitoring. And I've read some stories from papers around the country and they're basically pushing people in that direction. They're saying, like the Washington Post is like, here's why you need to choose the free credit monitoring over the money, and

I have to respectfully disagree. I think if you were affected in any way by the Equifax breach, you should be applying for the cash payment, not the credit monitoring. And that's because if you just basically assent to the fact that you have credit monitoring, that you have some sort of credit monitoring, you can take the cash instead. And there are awesome free options for you when it comes to credit monitoring. And on top of that, if you have the at it freeze in place, you really

almost don't even need credit monitoring either. YEA monitoring is basically pointless at that point, because let's just watch something that's completely locked down. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, that a couple of our favorite websites for you to sign up for free credit monitoring on if you do want to go that route, Our credit sesame and Credit Karma. Will link to both of those in the show notes as well. But those are just great sites for being

able to monitor your credit and it's free. There are all these services out there that want to charge you, especially from the credit bureaus. Don't do it. Get the free stuff, that's all you need, and then get your five dollar check in the mail when it finally come. I hope it's more than five bucks. But you mentioned the Washington posts telling everybody to actually take the monitoring instead.

That's because they want their money. They're thinking, if we tell enough people to go with monitoring, that means we get a bigger check. Yep, it's true, it's true. But people need to know, man, they need another truth. And also on that website, when you go there, you will see some other options there if you to make a claim, you can see if you can actually prove that you were damaged somehow, and you can prove it, you could be eligible to up to twenty thousand dollars and damages

and that's a lot of money. That's that's no joke right there. However, I think the ability to prove that might be extremely difficult, and if that's something you want to pursue, though, be sure to check that out. I think the standard of proving that the Equifax breach was responsible for some sort of major identity the problem in your life, it might be a hard standard to prove.

But if you believe that's the case, and you've had trouble since the breach and you've had to do a lot to repair those issues, I would say it's totally worth filing the claim on the website and trying to get payment for the damages that you've incurred. Let's go ahead and get to the beer for this episode. Man, we have Whitelaw wheats. Uh. This is by crank Arm Brewing Company. Cody and Raleigh sent this one to us and it's crank On Brewing because that's a bike part.

Did you pick up on that bike, especially because the label has bikes all that has got bikes all over it. And he sent it to us as well because he is part of a nonprofit called Oaks and Spokes and they promote bicycling there in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina. So be sure to check them out. And I'm excited to share our thoughts on this beer at the end of this episode. Yeah, Cody, sounds like my kind of guy. This sounds like my kind of beer. Can't wait to

drink it and let people know what we think. And by the way, this was a gold medal winner in the wheat category at the Great American Beer Festival. Here has got some hardware on its shelf, right, I like it. Yeah, it's a good one to be trying today. So all right, Matt, Now let's get onto the topic at hand. For this episode, we're talking about how to rebuild a rough credit score. And we've talked before about the problems of having a

bad credit score. You know, you and I both agree that it is probably not good how much of our lives revolver on this one score that these three bureaus create on us without our permission. That's just not a great system. But because the system is currently set up the way it is, it's really important if you have

bad credit that you work towards rebuilding it. And so we we've got a lot of information to share about how you can get your kind of credit back up on its feet after a rough patch, and gonna try to hit a lot of important points today on that subject. Yeah, Joel, you just sort of touched on this, and it's kind of unfortunate, right, Like you said that so much of our life revolves around the credit score, but it really

is so important. A couple of reasons is that great credit can be used to secure just a really good term for a home loan, versus if you have poor credit, you might end up with a crappy loan, or you

just might get turned down altogether. Bad credit could also cause you to pay more of your car at home insurance as well, And we've actually mentioned this on previous episodes, but if you have bad credit when it comes to government jobs, there's certain security clearances that they will not allow you to have because of your bad credit because of the potential for security issues. So that's definitely something

to keep in mind. Yeah, you might even have a hard time getting a place to rent because landlords are often pulling your credit and making judgments about you based on that. So yeah, bad credit just all around makes things harder for you. Actually pulled your credit before we became friends, just to make sure, like you know, you're of my ilk, just to make sure that we can hang. You know. There have been studies about dating relationships and

how people different credit scores mixed. I find that so fascinating that typically when asked the question about their potential mates and their credit score, oftentimes people want someone of a similar credit score to them, right, They want to be with someone who's responsible in that way. So, and by the way, some issues of credit will linger longer for you. Like let's say you've had a bankruptcy in the last seven to ten years or a foreclosure in

the past seven years. Well, those things are going to affect your credit for longer periods of time. Some of the steps that we're going to talk about today, you know what, they'll still be able to help you if you've had a bankruptcy or a foreclosure, but what they

can't do is wipe those completely off your record. Also, if you've been divorced, it doesn't necessarily impact your credit score, but it can depending on how things are divided up in the divorce and how your former partner treats joint accounts that you're on together, it can affect your credit score as well. So they're all these things that could affect your credit score and could send it plummeting. But there are a lot of ways to kind of write

the ship. Yeah, Unfortunately, there could be some malicious spending. Is that what you're referring to. It comes to, you know, relationships going south, or just even in the divorce decree, right the finalization, where maybe there's a lack of understanding over who's supposed to tackle what, or your former spouse has issues with income and whatever. They've been tasked with paying the bills they've been tasked with paying that you

still are joint on. They don't pay, and so that can lead to hardship for you, even though that's not supposed to be your responsibility. Man, Yeah, that's a huge bummer. And regarding timing of this entire thing, right, it's it's important to note that change like your credit score isn't gonna change and it's not gonna happen overnight. You could likely see some movement in thirty to sixty days, but

it's not going to be an immediate thing. But as you are rebuilding your score, it's best to go ahead and keep track your score. And it's sort of like we mentioned earlier, that's gotten so much easier these days. Many credit card companies will offer you just free monthly updates. I'm pretty sure all the major card carriers offer that. Yeah. For we talked about this before too. It used to be shrouded in secrecy. I remember back in the day, I had like the one card from Washington Mutual. They

gave me access to my credit score every month. I was like, this is so great. But now it's almost readily available through through almost everywhere. Yeah, they're all offering it. But if you don't have a card, or if you happen to have a card that doesn't offer that. Again, like we mentioned at the beginning, be sure to check out either credit Karma a site like that, or even the credit score card dot com. Joe and I are

both a fan of that. That is discover cards separate sites, and if you have a discover card, you can actually linked to it from your credit card homepage or your dashboard whatever you wanna call it. Yeah, and even if you don't have a Discover card, you can use the site for free, which is really exactly gives you your FICO credit score, which is really nice. And just keep in mind though that every time you check that score, it doesn't hurt your credit. This is just your score.

This is different than having your actual credit report being pulled by a creditor, So don't feel nervous that this is actually gonna being your credit a little bit. You can go in there and look at it three or four times a day if you want to. But maybe that's unhealthy too. Yeah, maybe don't obsess over the credit score. It is a nice thing to start getting under control.

To to have a good credit score is important, but yeah, don't obsess every because you know, there are those people out there to who want the eight hundred fifty credit score. They want it to be perfect, and we've said to that's kind of a full You know, anyone that has an eight fifty Have you ever met anyone that's even if you achieve eight fifty for a second, what's the point.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And then on top of that, there are all these little things that could bump it down five, six, ten points and then you have to bump it right back up again, and so there's just really no point to strive for perfection here. Yeah, perfection, that's not what we're going for. We're going for like really good or good enough, and we're gonna talk about how you can actually achieve that right after the break, all right, Matt we're back. We're talking about how to

rebuild if you've got a rough credit score. And you mentioned right before the brake buddy that good enough is a good thing to be aiming for, not perfection exactly. Yeah. What is good enough though? Right? Yeah, And that's that's a question I think that would pop up in people's minds. So let's say you are rebuilding a rough credit score. You're you're in the five hundreds or something like that.

A couple of mile markers to keep in mind on your journey are scores of six eight and seven forty and six eighty kind of gets you it east into this kind of mid tier of being able to to get good rates, of being back into a state of like credit decency. Right. And then another great mile marker to set your sights on is getting that score of seven forty. That's when you're gonna really qualify for pretty much the best rates from almost any lender out there.

So those are just good things to keep in mind. If you're looking low, you're in the five hundreds, low, six hundreds, strive for six ad make that your goal and uh, and we're gonna tell you how you can hit that goal right now, yeah, Joel. Basically, there's a hierarchy of of things that affect your credit score, and we're gonna start with the things that affect your score the most. The number one thing is to make sure

that you are paying your existing accounts on time. Uh. This is gonna have the biggest impact making up of your credit score. What that means is you do not want to miss a payments on anything. It's easy to set a recurring calendar reminder. And even easier is that you can go to your credit cards, for instance, and you can set it up on auto pay. It's not hard to you just like full statement balance or it'll

say total new balance. But that's a way if you are forgetful to make sure that you never miss a payment, make sure you have that set up to automatically pay. Yeah, it just makes sense that that's the number one thing influencing your credit score, right, and if you can pay your bills on time over a long period of time, that's gonna have great ramifications on your credits. Have banks, credit cards, lenders, they all like to see that you pay your bills on time because they like to get

paid on time. Another thing is prioritized paying down your balances to keep them under a utilization threshold of thirty. That might have sounded a little fancy utilization threshold, but essentially, the less of your available credit that you're actually using, the better it looks on your credit score. So let's say you have a credit card that has a ten tho dollar available credit limit and you're using eight thousand dollars of that available credit limit too much? Too much? Right? Yeah,

that doesn't look good. It makes it look like you're using your credit irresponsibly or that you just need that credit, right. I mean, the banks don't mind having high limits of say ten thousand dollars, even maybe on a business card, but they to see you just use a little bit of it because that looks like, oh, I've got all this available to me, but I only need just a little bit, don't you worry? That's what makes you look

the best. Right. If you have a ton of available credit but only use a little bit, your credit score goes up. One way to kind of game the system and make it look like you're using less of your credit then you actually are, is to pay your bills twice a month, especially on those credit cards, right, instead of paying just once a month, pay money towards that

credit card balance before the statement even comes. If you do that, it looks like you're using less of your credit when the credit card company reports your balance to the credit bureaus. So that's kind of just a way to gain the system a little bit, make your utilization look lower and enhance your overall credit score. And personally, that's actually how I pay my credit card. I don't pay it twice a month, but I just pay it off at the end of the month. I actually don't

wait for the statement to come through. Uh. To me, the statements are completely worthless because by the time that statement actually comes out, I've already paid the previous balance for that specific calendar month. And for us, that's just a way that we're able to keep our spending in check and make sure that we are sticking to the amount that we've budgeted for that specific month. Yeah, the two things we just mentioned, Matt are are really good

for people even with good credit. And so now we're about to kind of get into some of the things that are really applicable to folks with poor credit right now. And getting a regular credit card can be helpful if you don't have enough available credit. But the problem is, if you have poor credit, actually being approved for another credit card is in all likelihood outside of your reach. You're gonna get turned down because your credit is really poor.

So if you don't qualify for a regular credit card, there are other ways to begin building that credit back up, the first of which is to get a secured credit card. Your local credit union is a potentially great place to turn for secured credit card. Walk in there and talk to someone at your local credit union branch. Ask if they have some sort of credit builder program available. If so, strongly consider applying for a card through them. Amazon actually

has a new credit Builder card as well. And what doesn't Amazon have these days? Right? I know, right? It's in edible in. One other place to turn for a credit card if you have really bad credit is a website called pedal card dot com p e t a l card dot com and pedal Card offers a regular credit card to people with poor credit by using other factors to determine your credit worthiness and the way secure

credit cards work. Uh, you know, you can get those again through your credit union or even Amazon evidently, but they require up front deposits because basically you have bad credit, and so they want you to put money down essentially to prove that you have something on the line that you're not just gonna walk away and continue to damage your credit over time. You can sort of take those training wheels off and you can get a regular card

by proving that you can handle your credit well. But essentially that you know that money down, it just access collateral and that's what makes that card a secured card. Think about your home loan, that's that's a secured loan because that note is against your house. Same thing with the vehicle. With a car loan, they have something that

they can come after. And in this case with the credit card, if you put down the money and you get that secured card set up, well, if you don't pay your bills, well guess what they have that deposit to offset that risk. Yeah. And by the way, on that Amazon credit card, mat interestingly enough, you can graduate to a real credit card through Amazon in seven months of handling that secured credit card. Well, so it really is kind of this training wheels thing to get you

to pedaling on your own on a bike. It's yeah, we love those bike analogies. By the way, always always up for using a good bike analogy. That's for sure. Something else that you need to do to help rebuild your credit score. You want to make sure you are keeping your old cards open and active. Uh, the length of your credit history makes up of your credit score. The previous two items we've talked about combined make up sixt so definitely those are the big heavy hitters, but

these other aspects are really important as well. Keep those cards open. If you're attempted to overspend on those cards, you know at that point they might be worth closing. But hopefully, if you're rebuilding your credit score, you're also taking control of your spending as well, so hopefully that's

not a problem. And also you want to make sure that you're periodically using those cards as well, because sometimes certain credit card issuers they might even close an account if there's been an activity, and they don't actually have to tell you that they're going to close your account. Some folks say to use it every quarter, like every three or four months. Personally, man, I've used cards like once a year, and that's more than enough I found in my personal use to keep an account active and

maintain that really long history. Yeah, you don't want to cancel credit cards, especially if you are in the act of rebuilding your credit score. Closing cards takes a bite out of your score and you're working towards raising it, that's just a bad move to make. Another important part

of your credit score is your credit mix. So as you have different credit cards and different loan products that you're paying on every month, that will naturally increase the mix of your credit which is helpful to your overall score. And doing something like a credit Builder loan can not only be helpful in establishing a history of payments, but it can also help your credit mix look good. So

there's this interesting website called self lender dot com. Self Lender essentially allows you to open a credit Builder account and you choose the payment term and dollar amount that you want to spend. And every time you pay a monthly payment towards this self lender account that you have opened, you're building credit history for yourself. And once you've paid off the credit Builder account, you have this CD that unlocks and the money is yours and that CD is

even earning interest. So self lender is this really kind of cool way around it. It's like getting a loan from yourself and repaying it. It's just kind of a cool, interesting tool. Man. I think this is a super cool tool. Like, essentially, you're you're kind of putting your own credit score on layaway because, like like you mentioned, you get these loans and it's held by a self lender. At the end

of the term you unlock it. It's almost like this little treasure chest where you've been sort of stashing away money, except for it's your own money because you took out the loan yourself, but you haven't had access to it. Super cool. I think it's an awesome way to, like you said, not only establish a history of making payments on time, but to also improve your credit mix because this is an installment loan, which is different than revolving credit,

which is what credit cards are. So in the credit bureaus, they really like to see that you have those two different types of debt. Yeah, that you're handling credit cards well, that you're handling and install it loan well. So rebuilding your credit score essentially in doing it on both fronts by tackling your revolving credit and then having an installment loan that you're paying off on time in full every month.

These are the ways that you're going to be able to affect your score and see it rise more quickly. Chances are, if you have a pretty poor credit score, you're gonna have to take a lot of these steps in order to turn your score around, which means you're gonna see your credit score actually drop a little bit in the short term because you're applying for and opening a lot of new lines of credit. We shouldn't be overly focused on the short term effects of our credit score.

The goal is to rebuild it for the long term, because you have given your score enough time to rebound that way, it is looking healthy and strong way down the road when the time does come for you to apply for a mortgage, maybe get some new insurance rates that are going to be lower. Again, all the different things that are going to be affected by a better

credit score. Yeah, a five to seven point drop for opening a new line of credit isn't that big of a deal when we're talking about a score in the five hundreds or low six hundreds. Like you said, we're looking at the long term, alright, Matt. And there are people also that prey on folks who are looking to raise credit scores. There are people out there promising short term fixes for upfront money. We're gonna tackle that and a few more tips on how to rebuild your credit

score effectively right after the break. All right, we are back from the break, Joel. Let's now talk about some more specific things that you can do when you are repairing your credit score. When you're trying to rebuild it, let's do it. One of the first things to do is to look over your actual credit reports. Now, at the beginning, we talked about checking your credit score, say through a credit card company, but you also want to

make sure that you pull your actual credit report. On the report you can check for inaccurate information, because there might be some incorrect information on there that could be hurting your credit score, and you definitely want to make sure that you dispute that to get that off of your report. Yeah, more than anything, you want to make sure that it's not inaccurate information that's messing you up. And the only place that you should go in order to get your credit reports for free is a web

called annual Credit report dot com. So make sure you're going there and not anywhere else. Most other places on the internet you're gonna be charged money in order to get your credit report at annual credit report dot com. You get it for free by federal law, and you can actually get one from every credit bureau for free once a year. So if you spread them out, you can get a free credit report once every four months.

So that's actually pretty sweet. Something else that you can consider is becoming an authorized user on someone else's card, Matt, someone who has a nicer credit score, maybe than you do. Can I join up? You've got a great score, I know you do. It would be an equal three legged race if you and I linked up like that. That's true, that's true, But keep in mind that this could also

hurt you if that person doesn't use credit. Well, so in that three legged race example, if you link yourself up to someone who actually isn't that great of a racer, well they're gonna drag you down instead of actually helping you out. Yeah. If I become an authorized user on your credit card, mat and then you stop paying your bills,

that's gonna hurt my credit score. But if I have a bad credit score and I become an authorized user on one of your cards and you continue to pay your bills on time and in full, it's gonna make me look great, which is the whole reason I'm asking you to do that for me, right, Yeah, And what's great too with an authorized user is that you don't even have to get the card. Even just being linked

to that account gives you the benefits. So that's great from the person who does have the better score because it keeps any potential risk at bay. Right. So someone were to be, say, an authorized user on someone's card. Again, you read the benefits of the user's credit score, but if you don't have the card, well, there's no chance of you, say, wrecking their credit and overspending causing all

sorts of problems. They're sure there are still risks, I would say to the person that is allowing someone to piggyback on their credit. So if someone actually like asked the question in one of our ask htm episodes, Hey, should I let my friend jump on my credit by becoming an authorized user to help improve their score? I would probably tell them don't do it, just because there

are certain risks potentially associated with it. By making them an authorized user on your credit card, your giveing them access to credit under your name, even if you don't give them plastic there are things that could potentially happen. What if they get sent with some of those big paper checks that you get from credit card companies that say, hey, you can spend this money ahead of time. You know

I'm talking about. Oh yeah, I've never used those, but me neither because they come with like a feet huge fees. Yeah yeah, so I'll use those. You'll. Speaking of risk, there's even more risk associated with co signing. Again, if you have bad credits, getting a co signer can help you maybe to achieve getting alone with rates that are pretty reasonable, maybe even score an apartment that you wouldn't be able to otherwise. But there's even more danger for

the co signer. Though. This is a pretty big ask, and like Joel said, I wouldn't ever personally co sign for somebody else. If you do realize that you are putting yourself at risk, make sure that you've got really

good communication with this person. Make sure that it's a good relationship and that this is something that you can easily discuss where things to go sour, and that you're ready to pay the bills in all honesty if the person that you co signed a loan for doesn't because if you who don't keep up those payments, you're the

one who's also going to end up in default. Another quick, potentially helpful resource for folks trying to rebuild their credit score is something from one of the credit bureau is actually Experience Boost. And granted this is only one bureau doing this, and it's probably only an eight to ten point bump, but if we're talking about a low credit score, and that bump can really help, and so Experience Boost is free and it's worth considering if you're trying to

increase your score. Basically, what Experience is doing, it's giving you credit, an actual, actual credit and an actual credit boost for paying utility bills that you're normally paying from your bank account, just by essentially linking that account and letting them see that it's happening. So that's an easy way for lots of folks to to get a little

bit of an improvement on their score. And if you are rebuilding your credit, something else that you need to hear make sure that you are not paying someone to help rebuild your credit. Those sites, those services typically are not going to be worth your money, and oftentimes their scams. It can be really tempting because we all want that magic bullet instead of what we need to do is just change our habits. We need to do that work in order to get our credit score back in a

good range. So be warned, once you start googling how to repair your credit you're just gonna start seeing these ads and just run away from them. You just want to completely avoid these different quote unquote services. Yeah, these credit repair firms are going to promise a lot and deliver very little often. They're going to ask for money upfront. They are going to promise that they'll remove negative information from your credit report, which isn't true. They just can't

actually remove accurate information from your credit report. So anyone that promises these things while asking you for money running the other direction as quickly as possible. It's really nice to think that you can repair your credit score really quickly for a little bit of cash. What Matt and I are telling you is that this is a process. It takes a little while right to see your credit

score move. It could take a year or two to get it into the range where you feel comfortable to kind of cross those mile markers that we discussed earlier of getting to a six eighty or seven forty credit score to see if let's say you've had a bankruptcy at begin to weigh on your credit less over time. There's no quick fix to getting your credit back on track. It's going to take your intentionality and hard work. But if you follow some of the things we've outlined in

this episode, you're gonna get there, that's for sure. Yeah. Like a lot of great things in life, oftentimes it just takes a little bit of time. True debt. All right, let's take it back to the beer. On this episode, we had White Wall Wheat, which was by crank Arm Brewing Send into Us by Cody and Raleigh. What were your thoughts on this beer, Buddy, I'm gonna tell you what I can see why. This was a gold medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival. This was a

really really good beer. This is a style that I don't know if we've had it on the show, maybe only once. Yeah, if we've had it before, I can't specifically remember which one it was. Yeah. So this is a Belgian whit beer, and I will say I really really enjoy this beer. Typically these beers have a lot of coriander in them, and I actually hate coriander. It's not one of my favorite flavors. This one avoided the coriander and actually had a little bit more of a

hot presence, So I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It was light, refreshing, a little bit of juicy, a little bit of hoppy, but the Belgian yeast kind of came through on this beer. Man, I really like this one. I think it's a crushable summer beverage with a lot of flavor. Yeah. Well, Joel on the Canus says it's an American bell Goo style Wits, and I think that American there in the title. I think that might indicate some of that hot presence which

gave it that lighter flavor profile. It's to me, it's almost like a Belgian light beer where didn't have those core inder flavors. You didn't have the banana going on, it didn't have those Belgian yeasts all kind of stacking up and providing this more Belgian style of beer. It drink a lot cleaner, almost like a light pilsner or a lagger almost, but with some more interesting fresh flavors

going on. Certainly a great beer for the summer, and I could also see how it's associated with biking, because this is the kind of beer I would totally want to drink after a hot, sweaty long ride. Yeah, no doubt this beer. You're completely right. It's like an American in a Belgian got married in a nice sixteen ounced beer can so mad. Props to Crank carm Brewing for this beer. Very very good, and a huge thanks to Cody for sending it our way. We really appreciate it, man.

And you know, this bright blue label, it actually looks really good sitting next to this creamy yellow glass of beer as well. So anytime there's that interplay between the packaging and the beer, I'm always a fan of that. I always love when the beer looks tantalizing in the glass, and this one definitely did all right, Matt. But quickly,

let's get to our final thoughts for this episode. If you're trying to rebuild your credit, the two most important things you need to keep in mind are paying your accounts in full on time everyoneth Missing payments is going to be one of the biggest detriments to your score. Also, prioritize paying down your balances. Lowering the amount of credit that you're actually using is going to help that credit

utilization ratio that we discussed. That is going to make you look more credit worthy and it's going to have a big effect on actually raising your credit score. And one of the best ways to do both of those things, Joel, is to lane yourself a secured credit card. Those cards will require some money up front, but that is how

you score one of those. Be sure to check out Pedal Card and Amazon's new credit Builder card as well, and also make sure that you are checking out some of those credit builder loans suff lenders specifically, a product like that will allow you to establish that history of paying your accounts on time while at the same time improving your credit mix. But above all, don't pay anyone else to rebuild your credit score. It's not an easy fix.

It takes a little bit of time, and you can do this, all right, Matt, That's gonna do it for this episode and listeners. If you want to find show notes for this episode, they'll be up on our website at how to money dot com. And if you found this episode helpful or entertaining, or some combination of the both, we would love for you to leave a review for us over at Apple Podcasts and you know what, even if you've already left a review, just leave another one.

I think Joel's left us like ten or eleven reviews already because I leave it how it works. I leave it under my grandma's account, my cousins, like anybody like. I just try to try to make us look good. You know, have you ever even used an Apple product? Joel, No, I refuse, I refuse. I stay away, but we would love a review from you if you haven't already they alright, buddy, until next time, Best friends out, Best Friends Out.