Need to Raise Your Credit Score? Paying Off Debt Can Help

Your credit score is a number that illustrates your credit worthiness, and in the US it’s used for a variety of things including loans and acquiring new lines of credit. Depending on where you live, it can even affect your car insurance rate. While payment history is the biggest factor in your score, there’s another crucial aspect that you should be aware of – your credit utilization ratio. 

Representing the percentage of your total available credit that is currently in use, credit utilization can affect anywhere from 10% to 30% of your credit score. And if your credit limit is relatively low, it shouldn’t cost you too much to bring down the ratio to build up your credit score.