You’re faced with a dilemma. It’s the end of the month and you have a stack of bills due. You were hoping to go on a special weekend getaway with friends, but don’t have the money to pay all your bills and enjoy the trip. You realize something has got to give, so you decide to skip a payment on your credit card to have money for the weekend. It’s only 30 days, you say to yourself, and you plan to really get serious about paying down your bills after this month.
That decision could cost you thousands of dollars.
“Making late payments is really the number-one way that consumers can damage their credit report and credit score,” says Chaomei Chen, head of credit risk for the credit card division of Seattle-based Washington Mutual. “Conversely, making on-time payments is the easiest way to increase a consumer’s credit score over time.”
Keeping Score On Your Credit Score
Credit scores are derived from information found in your credit reports, which are maintained independently by each of the three major bureaus-TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. The data is run through a mathematical formula to produce...