Author: Mikey Rox / Source: Wise Bread
You can’t help with whom you fall in love — and that’s never more annoying than when the object of your affection has royally effed up their credit. Nobody’s calling it quits over a few past financial mistakes, but the situation will need to improve if you two are planning a future together that includes buying a home, starting a business, or other major money-based life decisions.
Since you’re now in this together, you have a responsibility to do what you can to make sure you start your joint life on the right foot credit-wise. Here’s how.
1. Help your partner review their credit report to flag and report errors
If your partner has terrible credit, it’s likely that they don’t know how to pull their credit report, flag errors, and report them to the appropriate authority to have them removed or updated. That’s where your expertise (or even elementary knowledge) of how credit reports work comes in. Flagging and reporting credit errors is the first step in getting their situation back on track and under control. Once that’s squared away, you can move on to the bigger issues. (See also: How to Read a Credit Report)
2. Provide positive reinforcement instead of bailing them out
It’s easy to throw money at a problem to make it go away — especially if you have extra cash to spare and the person you love will benefit immensely from your generosity (at least in the short term). But I urge you to avoid opening your wallet to deal with your partner’s bad credit. Instead, provide encouragement that they can manage their debt on their own.
They created this situation, after all, and the only acceptable solution is that they work it out without your financial assistance.
Help them in other areas, like navigating their credit report, but don’t shill out dough to dig them out. The only thing they’ll take away from that scenario is that you’ll always be the sucker who pays for their poor judgment.3. Establish a cash allowance that you’ll both adhere to
You can’t take your adult partner’s credit cards from them (even though you might…
The post 6 Ways to Boost Your Partner’s Bad Credit Without Risking Your Own appeared first on FeedBox.