Not everyone has made great decisions in their lives. Sometimes those decisions are financial, and they may affect your credit rating to your present and future detriment. And if you have a poor credit score, you may find it hard to get credit to do things like purchase a car or a home, or borrow in order to grow a business. And sometimes you need to obtain credit in order to boost opportunities, such as purchase equipment or add staff.
Before you panic about your credit possibilities, however, it’s helpful to understand credit. Your score is a three-digit number; the average is 673 for a consumer. Credit limits for business owners and consumers differ, too, as does debt load. How well you stick to a payment schedule for things like mortgage or credit cards affect your credit score, too. So what can you do? This graphic helps explain your options.