BONUS: Know where you want to go

Like anything in life, having a goal helps. Did you know that you’re 42% more likely to achieve your goal if you write it down?

The same goes for your finances too, you might have a goal to own a house. In order to achieve that goal you need to do a number of things:

  1. Save for the deposit
  2. Workout how much you could borrow (based on your income)
  3. Find the house
  4. Get a mortgage in principle
  5. Complete & move in

 A number of these activities require you to be on top of your finances. While improving your credit score might not be a very exciting goal,finding your dream home only to find out that you didn’t pass the credit checkfor the mortgage isn’t much fun.

So what should you do...

Create a plan.

Incorporate everything you have learnt in this course into your plan. It’s important to create a realistic timeline that you will be able to stick to.

Here’s a summary of the things you need to include:

  • Make sure there are no mistakes on any of the three CRA reports
  • Get on the electoral roll
  • Make sure you have more than 2 accounts (the electoral roll counts as one)
  • Don’t do any hard credit checks in the 6 months leading up to an application
  • Build some savings to help you on a rainy day (so you don’t need to get credit)
  • Time the application with other activities you’ll have to complete

Still got declined? No worries.

If you still get declined, don’t panic and don’t make any hasty decisions.

 Rather than attempting to get credit elsewhere and run the risk of getting declined again, take the time to determine why you were declined. Go back through these lessons and see if there is anything additional you can do.

Consider whether you need to reassess your goal or approach it in a different way. You may need to adjust your timeline and need a few more months proving your ability to repay on existing credit.

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This Finance Academy was brought to you in collaboration with LOQBOX. The experts whohelp you build your credit score while you save, saving you £1,000s on creditcards, loans and mortgages.