When it comes to dealing with finances at home, trust mums to know how important it is to keep a good credit score or credit rating.

And although many mums are aware of the obvious things that hurt our credit ratings such as missing repayments on loans (a sure fire way to ruin your credit score!) or failing to keep up a good payment history, there are plenty of other things that hurt your credit rating of which you aren’t aware of.

This article will help you understand the intricacies of credit ratings and how certain things that you least expect can impact your credit score!

1. Phone Plans, Utilities, Bills!

When you make late payments or miss a repayment on any time of debt or amount due, it negatively affects your credit rating. This applies to any bills including your phone plan, gas, electricity, and so on.

If you miss payments or fall late on them, your credit history will be affected.

2. Balance transfers applications

For every balance transfer application you make to your credit card debts, you’ll get an official enquiry on your credit report. Although the idea of balance transfer applications is to help you repay your debt and to improve your credit score, submitting too many too soon will affect your credit rating negatively.

So what qualifies as “too soon” for balance transfers?

Essentially, if you’re transferring your credit card debt onto a card with a balance transfers interest rate but don’t meet the repayment during the given timeframe, and you then transfer it to a new balance transfer card, it will be considered as too soon.

Making transfers such as the above example will reveal that you aren’t reliable or able to meet your repayments thus negatively affecting your credit rating.

3. Closing accounts that have good repayment histories

If you’ve been doing good and meeting your repayments on time, don’t close that account!

This is one of the most common mistakes made seeing as the logic behind it is, if you’ve paid off your credit card completely, there’s not much sense in keeping it seeing as you no longer need it.

Thing is, having a good account with a good repayment history significantly improves your credit rating and this helps shed good light on your reliability as a borrower in the eyes of a lender.

4. Making too many credit card or loan applications at the same time

Many people think it’s a great idea to make as many enquiries as possible to see what offers they get from lenders to compare them. Sure, it sounds great in concept but little do you know that all of your applications for credit cards or loans are recorded and shared between lenders.

By making too many applications at the same time, lenders will view you as being desperate for credit which in turn will negatively affect your credit rating.

To avoid this, play it cool and commit to only making one application at a time.

5. Be diligent and check your credit report

Checking your credit report on a regular basis is paramount to having a good credit rating.

With issues the likes of identity theft and fraud on the rise, you need to make sure that your accounts are safe to avoid any potential damage to your credit rating.

Hopefully, the above points have helped clarify any doubt or uncertainties you may have on things that affect your credit rating. Always be sure to keep on top of your repayments (no matter what kind they are) and be smart about the way you handle your finances!