Credit Repair Mindset

You have to consider your whole situation when you are thinking about undertaking credit repair.

Do you have the time to do it yourself?
Do you want to learn how to do it yourself?
Are you comfortable doing it yourself? That is the same as asking if you have enough confidence to feel you are going to do this correctly and not mess it up?
Do you have the money to hire someone to do it for you?
Do you really need to do it?
Is there enough ‘bad’ stuff on your credit report that merits credit repair?

You will know the answers to most of these questions right away. Perhaps you might not know if you have enough money to hire a company, but you should know that it is going to cost you around $800 - $1500 if you hire someone to do this for you. You should also know that if you want to undertake this on your own, it is going to cost you around 2 – 4 hours of your time. Break it down on a per hour basis and you might reconsider hiring someone!

Most people undertake credit repair if their credit profile is preventing them from getting something they want. This could be a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card or even a job!
You should know that ‘bad’ credit will eventually ‘fall off’ your credit report in time. However, most people don’t want to wait the amount of time it takes.

If you are going to do this on your own, you need to set aside an evening or two for reading and gathering. You need to read enough so you feel comfortable. You don’t want to get started with this project and wonder if you are messing it up. I assure you that you can do this on your own. There are a lot of guides, both free and for a fee that are very thorough. The problem is there is almost too much information available on the web. But you will find as you read through it, most of it says the same thing. And that is a good thing for you because it will confirm to you that the process is pretty basic and the same for everyone. You will find that if you buy a guide it will also have pretty much the same information that you can find for free. I really don’t suggest that you buy a guide. I have bought several so that I could review them and see if they really gave any kind of special insight and didn’t find any that did. There are free credit repair guides that you can get either as a PDF you can download or simply by reading web pages on a site.

Probably the best place to start is at the FTC’s website. Google this term: FTC credit repair. You will find them at the first link. Read this over. It is the starting point but they leave a lot out. They give you the streamline basics. Then find some free credit repair guides and read them over. Most are only 10 – 20 pages. Don’t fall for the sales tactics of guides you have to pay for. The page that sells you the guide will be written better than the guide itself. Many paid guides are the ‘story’ of the writer instead of good hard facts. Many of the guides are vague and don’t go into enough detail.

Another thing you should know is that doing credit repair on your own might only get you so far. You might need to contact a credit repair company or credit repair atto
ey in the end. Don’t let this worry you. Everything really depends on the severity of your credit situation. You own efforts should save you a lot of money. If you are able to get many items deleted from your report, but then run into a brick wall with some others, you might not know how to proceed further and most credit repair guides won’t have the answers for you. At this point, you might need to turn to a professional. Since the professional will only be dealing with what is left on your credit report, you will be paying them much less than if you went to them at the beginning.

In the end, credit repair should be a very positive experience for you and it will help you reach your goals.

Good luck.