Everyone should understand the importance of having good credit. The only way to fix your credit report is to get rid of negative items and start building a solid credit history. There are a bunch of firms that claim to be able to repair your credit in a short amount of time but most of these services don't work as advertised. So, what is the best way to repair your credit?

The first step to fix your credit report is to get a free credit report online to see what is negatively affecting your score. Often times there are items that are not valid or up to date. There could be a balance from an old loan that is still being reported to credit bureaus. This is a case of your creditor not reporting your balance as paid. At this point, you need to write a credit dispute letter to the credit bureau explaining that the balance is paid. They will investigate with the creditor and provide a resolution in a few weeks.

Valid items on your report cannot be removed no matter what any credit repair firm says. Only items that are not updated or invalid can be removed after going through the dispute process. Getting a free credit report online will allow you to identify and attack the items that are hurting your score. If late payments are dragging your score down, you can start paying these accounts on time and your score will improve over time.

After repairing your credit, you need to keep it intact by reviewing your credit on a regular basis or enroll in a credit monitoring service that will alert you when new items hit your report. With your new and improved credit, many things in life will be cheaper and reaching your financial goals will be much easier.