The habits that keep a score climbing

Make on-time payments, automatically

Payment history is 35 percent of your score, so this is the highest-leverage habit there is. Set payments to go out automatically. Some people go further and pay twice a month or weekly, which also keeps reported balances lower.

Keep debt low

Utilization is the ratio of what you owe to what is available to you. You can improve it from either side: pay balances down, or raise your total available credit without raising your spending.

Pick a repayment strategy and stick to it

• The avalanche method targets your highest interest rate debt first. It costs the least overall.
• The snowball method targets your smallest balance first. It costs slightly more, but the early wins keep people going, which is why it often works better in practice.

Start small, and keep going

If a full payment is out of reach, make the minimum at the very least, and add a little extra when you can. Small consistent amounts compound: setting aside a dollar a day is an extra $30 a month against a balance.

Pay before the statement, not just before the due date

Two different dates matter and most people only track one. The due date decides whether you are late. The statement date decides what balance gets reported to the bureaus. Pay in full every month and you will never be late, but if you consistently run a high balance up to the statement date, the bureaus still see high utilization.

Making a payment a few days before the statement closes reports a smaller balance without changing anything about what you spend. It is the cheapest score improvement available, and it costs nothing at all.

Automate the part you will otherwise forget

Set the minimum payment to go out automatically on every account, then pay more by hand when you can. The automation is not there to clear the debt, it is there to guarantee that a busy month never turns into a seven-year mark on your report.