What are the best ways to clean up your credit in one year?

Start by getting a free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus. There is now a federal requirement that they offer US consumers one free repeort per year. Don't get the combined reports. If you do you will have used your 1 free annual report and will not have all the info you need to correct the errors that you find. You will want to pay the small additional fee to get your FICO score from each, it should cost about an additonal $5 if you find the right options on the website. Be aware that they offer many other options most of which primarily cost you more money, but give little benefit.

Read over each report carefully. Errors are very common. Ask them to investigate and remove each error. Correct even errors such as wrong addresses, and update address and employment information, they reflect on your stability and do have an effect on the decisions that lenders make. They have 30 days to investigate and respond. If they are not able to correct something that you know is a mistake, then you start calling an writing the lender directly to the business to get the problem solved.

You now know exactly where your credit rating stands.This gives you your starting point for your 1 year project of
improving your credit.
If you are over extended, and have gotten into a habit of living above your means this is the time to change the habits for a good cause!
Make a careful tight minimum budget. Figure out the minimum amount you can get by one for living expenses each month. Then dedicate the remaining funds (the total amount left over in your budget after paying necessary expenses)toward paying of debt and clearing up credit.

Eliminate all unnecessary bills (cancel cable,and any other unnecessary expenses) Examine your bills, are there options you can eliminate? If you have trouble keeping up with all the little payments like many of us do, you can use a free bill paying service like www.mycheckfree.com or a bill paying service from your bank like the one offered by Washington Mutual www.wamu.com. If you are managing a tight budget there can be advantages to using a service that is separate from your bank, in order to schedule the payments in advance and before the(hopefully direct deposited) funds are in your account each pay period. Make or schedule to each payment to arrive in advance of the due date and pay at least the minimum plus one dollar on each and every account. Then determine which of your debts has the highest interest rate. List them in order of the highest rate to lowest rate down a sheet of paper in you bill payment / credit improvement folder. After you have made sure that every account has at least its minimum payment plus 1 dollar paid each month, then calculate how much money is left over at this point. Apply all of this money toward the account with the highest credit rate first.If this pays that account in full and leaves you any money left over, continue down teh list applying the maximum amount to each account as you go down the page. Always paying off the highest interst rate accounts first.

Set up a folder where you put all bills, and staple a sheet of paper to the folder. list all of your payments, thier due dates and the minimum due in columns down the sheet. Each month when you make your payments record it in writing on this sheept along with any additional notes that you may find useful. Take all your credit cards but one out of your wallet, leave them in a safe box at home. Do not purchase anything on credit for the year of the project. Keep the one card for real emergencies. A shoe store sale with shoes to die for is not a real emergency!

Do not apply for any new credit during this year. None. not even asking for a new cell phone company quote or insurance quote, if they will do a credit check. They probably will.

Do not close any accounts, especially if there have been problems. When you close an account you also close off the possibility of improving that account. If you keep the account open and continue paying as agreed, it can improve the account record over a shorter amount of time. Avoid having any account "written off". At minimum, make payment arrangements. Only do this if you cannot in fact pay the full amount owed.
Follow these rules very carefully for the 12 months of your credit improvement plan. At the end of the year, request new free credit reports, and pay the fee for your new and improved FICO scores from each Bureau. You will likely be amazed at the amount of improvement you have been able to make!

Make a regular paln to request your credit report each year, maybe on your birthday or some other memorable date. This way you can keep up with any issues on your report. Use credit carefully and with restraint. Practice living within your means, and considering credit as a solemn promise to pay. It is the commonly used evaluation of your "character" in a capitalist society. Protect your name and the image of your character as if they are important to you. Unfortunately too many of us feel like it is more important to "keep up with the Jones's" or to "look" like we are something, rather than working toward actually "being" something. It is all about changing one's perspective on what is worth while.

Good Luck! You are not the only one in this situation. I used to be a credit manager, and later found myself with problem credit due to overwhelming family illnesses, followed by identity theft, and recurring errors and carelessness by the credit bureaus in merging account records. It took me four years of this program to get both improved credit and out of debt. I moved my credit score up by about 200 points.

First, learn how to negotiate with your creditors.
Second, get a credit repair kit either from an office supply store or on-line.
Keep educating yourself about credit. Use the Federal Trade Commission web site.

Develop a methodical approach that is suited to you and your financial goals.
Do not stop putting money in your own savings

By "cleaning up" what is the problem? Judgements, bad credit report?

Judgements can't be removed from your report very easily, and just paying them off is no guarantee it will improve your credit.

Bad credit report items can be removed if you follow the procedure from the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

-Get copies of your credit report at
www.annualcreditreport.com

-Send a protest letter to the Credit Reporting Agency (CRA) that has the report listed. They will "verify" the debt with the creditor, and must respond back within 30 days of the result. Note that "verify" only means that the creditor just has to inform the CRA it is a valid debt, and no proof or documentation is required. This is what most likely will happen. At this point you can send the CRA a letter protesting the entry, and they must put your statement on the record.

-Now send a "validation demand" letter to the creditor. That means the creditor must supply copies of all bills, contracts, receipts, and anything that was used to calculate what they say you owe. The must demonstrate you have a legal obligation to pay. They have 30 days to respond.

If they do send this information, examine it carefully. If it's correct, decide if you still want to go to court. This is the information they will use to defend themselves, so if you have a case you can now take it to court.

-If you do not get this information within 30 days, send a copy of the validation letter, plus another demand to remove the credit entry to the CRA, informing them that the creditor has violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If the CRA still will not remove the entry, you now have grounds to sue the CRA as well.

Be sure to send all letters by certified mail, keep very accurate logs of when they are mailed and who you talked to. It is NOT necessary to send them by certified mail, return receipt. Your receipt will prove you mailed it, and the tracking number on it can be traced to show it was delivered. That will save you a few dollars in postage.

Contact me if you need more help. I am not a lawyer or credit counsoler, just someone who has been through this many times before (and still doing it!).

You are about to go to war! Knowledge of the law is your only weapon! Don't fight these guys unarmed! Read the links below.

It is very hard if you owe alot. Pay smallest first and go from there.

pay your credit cards off as soon as you can and start saving money put it in a RRSP or some kinda of savings account and say you have one credit card that is just about to be paid off pay that one off first and then you will only have to pay off the one that is if you have more then one
but if not then just keep paying them off weekly and you should have alot better credit by the end of the year.
Good Luck

no way in one year but in 5 years there is a possibility.pay off your debts promptly and dont be late either

Pay off your bills, stop using your credit cards and get a credit report so you can see if there are any discrepancies on it. If so, write to the credit reporting agency and challenge the discrepancy. If they won't change it, they'll at least keep your letter of challenge on file so that people who check your credit can see it.

Don't ask for a suggestion to change your home address to unknown place.

If you have credit cards, do not just pay them of and close them, keep them open. The longer you have the accounts, the better it reflects on your credit. Keep an eye on your debt to income ratio. That is a biggie. You never want credit in excess of what you earn, lenders will think twice if they see that. And definitely don't over charge your cards. Keep balances low or at zero. A good way to work on good credit is to after you pay your debt off, take one or two cards and put all of your monthly expenses on them, but at the same time, remove the money from your checking or savings account register so that way you can just pay the balance off every month, cause you set the money you charged aside. Just don't have too many lines of credit open, but keep the cards that have been open the longest. And, one more thing. Never make late payments if you can avoid it. But, if you are in a bind, call your creditors. Tell them that you can pay some of what you owe, or can pay in full on a certain date, they will usually work with you. Good luck.

Buy a new computer on contracted payments, or get a new car and keep up payments.

gather all your bills up and start making payments. they report to the credit bureau every three months. each payment you make, your score will go up like a percentage of a point, it is small, i know, but it all adds up. BUT! if you don't make payments, and they report this, your score goes down like 3 points at a time, per item. that really adds up.

Consolidate your debts
Save and work extra if you are able to
Look up relative rates, see if you can find a better product
Think about direct salary deductions to ensure payments are made before you can get hold of the cash

You've already gotten some decent answers but, you may also want to check out this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_counseling

Get the book "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey

first, you need to set up a very tight budget & stick to it. if you have several credit cards consolidate all debts into one & pay off as much as possible each month. contact all past creditors & advise them what you are doing & make an honest effort to pay something each month. good luck

pay all your bills on time

pay off you most recent negetive accounts.

Debt consolidation does not work all the time. There are several things you can do to improve your credit score but debt consolidation is not high one my list of choices. Here's the reason why...
If you consolidate already delinquent debts, your credit reports will still reflect the delinquencies. Additionally, charge offs CANNOT be consolidated because the creditor has already taken that debt on its bottom line.
Choose your options wisely and/or contact me privately, I'll work with you to improve your credit scores.

Hi!
1 Stop spending money.
2 Find new hobby.
3 Do not habit to have (BUY) everything you want.
4 Be happy without spending money.
Have respect to small and big money.
good luck

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