First is the money you will lose by paying late.  Every account that you pay late assesses a fee.  This could be any amount and your account decides what it is.  You are now responsible for this additional fee.  The fee will be added onto your bill and the money you pay will first go towards the this fee then to the late payment.  So the fee will come first and you must pay this so you are not accessed another fee.

Second is the potential effect on the interest rates you are charged.  Your credit card accounts frequently review your credit report looking for any changes in behavior.  If there is a late payment to any account not only that account but any of your accounts can reserve the right to raise your interest rate.  So one late payment could cause a rise in your interest rates by several different accounts.

Last is going to effect your credit score for a long time.  Late payments stay on your credit report for seven years.  You could be just thinking about today, but they will follow you for a long time.  And could hurt your chances of getting a loan in the future.

You never want to pay late.  Things like having a budget or using online bill pay could be simple ways to make sure you do not pay late.

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1. Start Paying Your Bills on Time

The largest core area of your credit score is your payment history.  And not paying on time is going to kill it.  This is the number one best way to raise your credit score.  It does sound simple but individuals struggle with this piece every month.  It often has to do with the lack of a budget or lack of experience managing money.

2. Pay Down Your Debt

If you owe a lot, you need to develop a plan to pay down your debt.  This is the second biggest way to raise your credit score.  Your utilization is 30% of your credit score and being close to your limits will hurt it.  It also comes back to having a budget and developing a plan to use extra money to pay down debt.

3. Avoid Balance Transfers

Many individual use and advocate balance transfers as a way to get out of debt.  The truth is they often don’t work.  It has the effect of just moving the debt around.  Also, since your credit utilization is calculated on an account by account basis, you will can this to rise.  This will put you closer to your limits with that card and hurt your credit score.

4. Don’t Apply For Credit If You Don’t Need It

Don’t think you should apply for every credit card offer that comes to you.  Also, if a store offers you a 10% discount to apply for a store credit card, it isn’t worth it.  Each time you do this it creates a credit inquiries.  These have the ability to hurt or not hurt your credit score.  The idea is if you are applying for new credit all the time you represent a risk and will hurt your credit score.  You should only apply for credit as you need it.

5. Dispute Credit Report Errors

If you are looking of how to raise your credit score, you should start with disputing errors on your credit report.  You don’t think there are any errors.  Well, chances are you are wrong.  Studies have shown that 70% of credit reports have mistakes on them.  The only who is going to catch these most of time is you.  So check for and dispute errors.  This will help to raise your credit score.

6. Check Your Credit Report More Than Once Per Year

Now that you understand that errors are reported about you, you need to be looking for them.  You should look at your credit report a minimum of once per year, but if you really want to stay on top of it, twice would be better.  This prevents recently reported errors from staying on there if you dispute them.

There are even more than these and I will continue add more.  I hope that these are helpful

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Here are the stats from MyFICO

The average consumer’s oldest obligation is 14 years old, indicating that he or she has been managing credit for some time. In fact, we found that 1 out of 4 consumers had credit histories of 20 years or longer. Only 1 in 20 consumers had credit histories shorter than 2 years.

Two factors are considered when judging your credit history.

• What is the age of your oldest account
• What is the average age of your accounts

Here are some ideas to keep in mind when managing your credit history:

• What is the effect of closing an account?
• what is my oldest account?
• What will happen when add a new account?

Considering these factors could help you decide what is the right action when pertaining to your credit history.  You obviously want to stay away from closing your oldest account.  You need to protect this account because a closing of this account will effect both factors (oldest account and average age).

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