Your credit score goes a long way toward determining the kind of rates you get when borrowing money or getting approval for various large financial transactions. If you’re young and don’t have a history, or if you’ve had some hard times that tanked your credit score, it can be hard to build it up. At minimum, it takes time, but big purchases don’t always wait until it’s convenient for you!
One thing that’s been advertised a lot lately is an instant “boost” on your credit score. There are different products or services that do this, but we’ll look at one in particular, Experian Boost, and see how it works.
Here are Five Fast Facts about boosting your credit score:
- 🔍 Traditionally Speaking - The tried-and-true way to build your credit score is to pay down/off your debt, don’t miss payments (or pay late), keep new applications to a minimum, and keep an eye on your credit report in case something unusual pops up there. It’s basically just doing the right things consistently over the long term.
- 🚀 Getting Boosted - Experian Boost aims to help those with no credit or less-than-awesome credit get a jump start by including things like payments for streaming services, phone and utility payments, and possibly your rent payments. And, it only considers positive info; if you miss a payment it ignores that. Selective blindness for the win!
- 📈 The Boost - Experian says that the average boost to users is 13 points. It’s everyone’s lucky number!
- 📝 Eligibility - Boost is free to use, you just have to go sign up for it at Experian’s website. You will need to have at least one credit account (a loan, a credit card, etc.) and give it access to your bank account, but once you do that it kicks in.
- 🎲 The Catch - Boost may or may not improve your credit score. It depends on your actual history and payment information, of course, but even if it does it also only impacts your Experian score. If your credit score from TransUnion or Equifax (the other two credit bureaus) is pulled, they won’t see the boost at all. But hey, you have a 1 out of 3 shot, and if it’s free then what does it hurt?
🔥Bottom line: It’s a great program that can be helpful to many people, in the right circumstances. It’s not a guarantee, and it’s certainly not the long term answer to bad credit. But, for those it helps, it’s a really good thing! For everyone else, at least it doesn’t hurt to give it a shot!
Have you gotten boosted?
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