The free annual credit report will not give you your credit score or a tri-merge factual report that the mortgage companies get. If you are serious about cleaning up your credit we strongly suggest that you "pony up" the $35 bucks to get a full blown credit report. We also advise that you begin monitoring your credit for the next 6 - 12 months while you clean your credit. You can access these services here.

Three Easy Steps to Raise Your Credit Score

Keep in mind , Annualcreditreport.com will not give you your credit score. The law states they must show you what is being reported, not what score they are giving you. We at lendfast believe that if your intentions are to repair your credit the very first thing you should invest in is a fully tri-merged report with scores. It will cost you about $35 bucks and you can get it here. It is the only way to know exactly where you stand in the eyes of the lender.

Furthermore we also believe that you should employ a credit monitoring service for no less than a year. The reason is, when you begin to clean up your credit unscrupulous collectors will sell your information to other collectors even after you have paid them It is extremely important to monitor your credit report while you are trying to repair it. One of the best services can be found here.

It's also important to know just what a good credit score is. Most A-Paper scores generally begin around 680, although this number may differ slightly among lenders. Don't despair if you come up shy, there is always room for improvement. Increasing your score just 5 points can save a significant amount of money.

For example, if your score is 698 and you increase it to 703, then you could save yourself thousands of dollars over time as a result of a slight improvement to your loan’s interest rate.

While credit repair is necessary for some, it's not the only way to increase your credit score. Even if you have stellar credit, you can enhance your score through these steps:

1. Evenly distribute your credit card debt to change the ratio of debt to available credit. Let's say you have a credit score of 665. If you have debt on only one card, and four additional credit cards with zero balances, evenly distributing the debt of the first card could move you closer, and possibly into, that ideal bracket.
2. Keep your existing accounts open and active. The average consumer is usually anxious to close credit card accounts that have zero balances, but doing this can cause them to lose the benefits of a long-term credit history and increase their ratio of debt-to-available credit. The bottom line is don't close those old accounts!
3. Keep credit inquiries to a minimum. Each inquiry into your credit history can impact your score anywhere from 2-50 points. When it comes to mortgage and auto loans, even though you're only looking for one loan, multiple lenders may request your credit report. To compensate for this, the score counts multiple auto or mortgage inquiries in any 14-day period as just one inquiry, so try and stay within that time frame.