There’s no doubt that a great credit score saves you money, from your mortgage to credit cards, student loans and even getting that dream job. But sometimes you need to improve your credit score by a significant amount really fast.

Maybe you found your dream home and need a credit score boost quickly before qualifying for a mortgage? Or you’re applying for a great job that requires a credit score check, but someone missed that last credit card payment?

And while it’s an incredibly ambitious mission to raise your credit score 100 points in just 30 days, it’s not impossible. Everyone’s credit report, history, and therefore, situation, is different, but we’ve helped clients achieve a 100-point increase in just a month. And remember that even if you try and fall short, a 50 or 70-point increase in just a month is pretty remarkable – and helpful!

So, here are our 7 best tips for boosting your score 100 points in 30 days:

  1. Lower your Credit Utilization rate.

A big part of your credit score (30%) is based on your Credit Utilization, or your revolving debt balances compared to the available credit.

Across the industry you’ll see advice to keep your Credit Utilization below 30% (so if you have a $10,000 credit card, keep the balance at or below $3,000).

But ideally, to boost your score quickly, you should lower your Credit Utilization even more, down to 10% or less. Research shows that consumers with elite (800+) credit scores keep an average utilization of 7%.

  1. Pay down debt – or request a credit line increase.

We talked above about the importance of lowering your Credit Utilization rate to bump up your score.

There are actually three ways to achieve this: you can either pay off your debt (ideally) or call your credit card companies or lenders to ask for a credit line increase, which will achieve the same thing – improve your Credit Utilization.

  1. Apply for a new credit card.

You have other options for improving your Credit Utilization – like applying for a new credit card. Of course, you have to do this correctly and make sure you don’t have too much revolving debt already, so it’s best you contact Blue Water Credit and let us analyze your credit report first.

  1. Pay off your revolving debt with a personal loan.

There’s yet another option for paying down your credit cards and revolving debt to lower your Utilization – use a personal loan. A personal loan issued by a reputable bank, credit union, or lender will essentially allow you to pay off (or pay way down) all of your debt into one place with a consolidation loan.

Not only will this improve your Utilization but has the added bonus of improving your Credit Mix, which accounts to up to 10% of your score.

However, again, always check with Blue Water Credit to make sure a personal loan or any debt pay-off will actually help, not hurt, your score.

This is our own personal preferred lender for personal loans for clients: with this link, you can get prequalified so it doesn’t affect your credit.

Or if you have a good-to-great credit score already, you can prequalify for a personal loan here.

  1. Protect yourself from identity theft.

Unfortunately, identity theft, data hacks, and online identity scams are on the rise. So, to protect your score and credit, sign up for credit monitoring and ID theft protection. Here is the absolute best one on the market: https://www.identityiq.com/creditpreferred.aspx?offercode=431266LU

  1. Add rent, utility, and phone payments to your credit report.

Normally, certain payments are not reported to the credit bureaus and therefore don’t show up on your credit report or affect your score, like rent, utilities, and cell phone payments. However, there are ways to request these accounts are reported to the bureaus and help your score, with your entire history of on-time payments showing up.

Contact Blue Water Credit to hear more about adding these non-traditional payments to help your credit score.

  1. Have Blue Water Credit dispute outdated, inaccurate, or erroneous info on your credit report.

Saving one of the biggest and best strategies for credit score improvement for last, it’s important that we dispute all of the outdated, inaccurate, erroneous, and even negative items that are affecting your credit score.

There’s an official protocol for disputing items to the credit bureaus, based on consumer protection laws and requirements, and Blue Water Credit is the industry leaders in legal, ethical, and highly effective credit repair solutions.

We start with a risk-free Credit Evaluation, and for well more than a decade have helped consumers improve their credit scores by 20, 50, and even 100 points!

We’d love to help you try to achieve a 100-point gain within 30 days, so contact Blue Water Credit today!