Page 30 - Winning The Credit Game Bundle (CK Patrick)

18 THE CREDIT GAME

Interest rates. Are you paying way more money in interest
on some bills than others? If so, we’ll take care of those bills
first so that you’re charged less money in interest. That will
free up more money to pay other bills.
Late fees. Are you accruing late fees or other penalties on
certain types of bills? These will eat into your overall budget
and make it harder to pay off anything at all. So we’ll also
take care of those first.
Credit score impact. Are some of your creditors harming
your credit score more than others? If so, we will prioritize
those. You may even be able to open low interest rate lines of
credit that you can use to help pay off or consolidate your
other bills. This can help get your credit score up by
removing negative items from your report.
Seven-year statutory limit. Did you know that most
derogatory marks on your credit report should be removed
after a period of seven years? This may be very important
for you if you have outstanding debts which are five or more
years old. You may not need to pay these in order for them
to disappear.

Attacking your payment history strategically will allow you to save
a lot of money compared to simply randomly paying whatever cred-
itor is being most insistent at a given time. That in turn will make it
easier for you to get a stellar payment history quickly. So let’s get
started.

THE STATUTORY LIMIT

One of the most important things to know in the credit game is that all
negative reporting has a statutory limit. This means that a negative
item cannot remain on your credit report for more than a certain
period of time.
Most of the time, this makes little difference: if you have negative
items on your credit report and you wish to buy a house, rent an apart-