When getting your free credit report, keep these things in mind as they can help make it or break it for your credit score. Read more to find out.

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Your Free Credit Report
Your free credit report should include first your personal information such as your name, former names used, social security number, current and previous addresses, and employers on record. Make sure these things are all correct so that you know you have the right report. Sometimes because of human errors, your free credit report may get mixed up with someone else of a similar name or similar social security number.

Tip: To minimize the chances of getting your credit report mixed with someone else’s, make sure you use the same name when filling out applications for car loans, home loans, or credit card applications. Also be sure that you write legibly and in blue or black ink.

Your credit report will also include information such as any past due credit accounts, the length of your credit history, and any accounts with negative indicators. Having your bills paid on time each and every month will help your credit score. Also having a long credit history can boost your score. Because there is not much you can do about the age of your credit history besides wait, there is not much leg room there. There is something you can do about the average age of your credit lines: be sure not to try and open too many credit lines at one time. Not only will it cause more inquiries to show up, it will reduce your average credit history length.

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Next, your credit report should show the total balance of your revolving accounts, and mortgages, or installment loans. Looking at the total number of accounts you have open, it’s important to know that having fewer accounts with balances is better for your credit score. Also having too many accounts opened in the last year will deduct some points off of your credit score. Make sure to wait at least a year before applying and not having too many inquires. The inquiries on your account do drop from your free credit report after about 2 years.

Your credit report will then get into a deep dive of all your accounts whether if they are open or have been closed. It will show the most recent balance from those credit lines and show you if it is causing any negatives on your credit profile.

We mentioned inquiries before and these indicate when a lender, bank, business, or even yourself has tried and accessed your credit report. Note that when you check your own credit report, it will not hurt your credit score because it is a soft pull.

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