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Every day I receive hundreds of emails from people all over the United States asking such questions as “How do I repair my credit?” or “A local credit counseling agency wants to charge me $1,000 just to get started, is this fair?” or “Can I repair my credit without help - can I do it on my own?” Yes you can!

Learn more by clicking the hop links to the right—->

With so much misleading advice given on the Internet and rogue credit repair agencies who are only out for the fast buck, it is easy to be confused as to what steps to take when you want to clean up your credit history and get out of debt.

To help guide you, the following questions and answers are factual advice that can help you understand more clearly on what you need to do:

Question: I would like to repair my credit but do not know where to start. Should I call a credit repair service or counselor?

Do not pick up the telephone until you have made the first step, and that is to pull a full credit report from all of the major credit bureaus. You must first learn the secrets that creditors do not want you to know.

The reason why this is so important when deciding on credit repair is so that you can first take a look for yourself if there are any inaccurate reports or forms of identity theft. If so, then there are steps to take on your own without hiring a credit repair service, at least not yet. The Credit Secrets Bible is the first place to start. You can read more by clicking here.

Question: I believe that I am the victim of identity theft. I would like to repair my credit but there are thousands of dollars in creditor debts that were not done by me or anyone in my family. What should I do?

Victims of identity theft are usually caught by complete surprise through an account on their report that they did not open, or some unusual action going on with a credit card, or several of them. Here are some tips if you fall into this unfortunate position:

1) Write all of the information down you find on these illegitimate filings.

2) Call and close down any accounts with creditors that are affected.

3) If you are able to have your credit report frozen, do so immediately (only certain States allow this).

4) Place a fraud alert by calling one of the major credit bureaus.

5) And of course, call the authorities and fill out a report.

Question: When I want to repair my credit, what information is listed on my credit report?

When you first receive your credit report you may be wondering what what all of the information means. The best thing to do is break it down. Each report contains the following brackets of information:

1) Your personal profile.
2) Public records which include late payments, collections, negative remarks, etc.
3) History of your account.
4) Credit inquiries.
5) Credit score.
6) Any statements that you have submitted, in 100 words or less.

Special Budgeting

Are you looking for personal budgeting strategies that can help you control your income, limit unnecessary spending, and create more cash flow so that you can invest and pay off debts?

What makes budgeting so hard for most people is the idea that they have to cut out all of the fun and entertainment from their lives in order to be smarter with their cash. However, there are many ways to follow personal budgeting strategies that will not only help your financial situation, but still allow you to have a life outside of just cutting expenses. Here are some examples of personal budgeting strategies that are easy to implement:

Cut Up Those Credit Cards

This is the first move that I typically advise people to make when it comes to creating a budget plan, especially families. Credit card debt has reached an all-time peak over the last five years and there is absolutely no reason why you need to go out and spend money on an item that will take you years to pay off.

One of best success stories I know is about Sara, a divorced mother of three, who was not receiving child support, only made enough money to get by (barely), and had over $20,000 in credit card debt. The moment Sara shredded up her cards and stuck to her personal budgeting strategies as outlined, she had an overwhelming sense of freedom.

Over the next couple of years, Sara learned to stop shopping for stuff she could not pay for, paid off a large portion of her credit card debt, and even when she was back in the green zone with her credit card amounts, she transformed her way of living to the point where she never again purchased something unless she could pay for the entire item with cash.

Pay Yourself First

Personal budgeting strategies typically teach you to stop spending money, pay off debts, and cut corners when shopping. This is all fine and good but if you do not start “paying yourself” first every time you receive a paycheck then years can go by and you will not have anything left for yourself.

“Pay yourself first” simply means to take out a small portion of your income and set it aside into a personal savings account. 10% is the ideal amount. At first you may think that this is too much to save and will not leave enough left over for your bills and other budgeting plans, but once you get used to putting this amount aside it will not be missed at all.

So when planning out your personal budgeting strategies, never give money to your cable company, electric company, credit card debts, etc. before giving yourself a small paycheck. In time that 10% will reach a significant amount which can be used for financial gain – investments, creating assets, etc.