One of the hot topics of today is credit repair; “repair your credit score” is one of the most searched terms in Google.

Whether you have a foreclosure that wasn’t discharged correctly, late payments on a credit card that your ex-boyfriend owned, or a charge off that happened when you were going through a divorce, fixing your credit is your only hope to improve your situation.

Here are three methods of credit repair repair your credit score that are available

1) Seek a non profit agency

Whether you live in New Orleans, New York or New Mexico, all cities and towns have not for profit (non-profit) agencies that help people with their financial problems. They are available as counseling services rather than institutions that charge money to improve your situation. They don’t offer consolidation loans or home equity loans instead they offer advice.

2) Do Credit Repair – Repair Your Credit Score Yourself

Even the top experts say that anyone can do credit repair repair you credit  score by writing dispute letters to the three bureaus that calculate scores. Moreover, each of these three bureaus have sites that allow you to dispute that foreclosure, medical bills and collections online. Just beware, writing dispute letters have proven to be more effective than using the bureaus online portals.

3) Seek a Repair Company as Your Last Option

There are multiple organization and companies that advertise that they can help you with deleting negative items from your credit quickly at a low cost. However, most aren’t able to back up their claims of fast and inexpensive repair. Instead the quality of their services is poor and they often times don’t even deliver on their promise of credit repair repair your credit score.

Easiest option to save money on your mortgage is to refinance your home. Many times you can qualify for a better rate, or a different home loan program with a lower rate that will help free up some money with your monthly mortgage payment. Refinancing can not only lower your payment and save you money but many times consolidate debt, get some extra cash out and usually give you a month or two without a monthly mortgage payment.

Loans do not have pricing adjustments or credit score requirements for cash-out loans as well. One can borrow up to 95% of the value of their home to consolidate debts and put themselves in a much better financial position.

Most of these mid 500 score programs are designed to be short term loans for borrowers. It allows them to get into a home, get cash out, consolidate debt while waiting for their credit scores to improve so that down the line they will be able to finance a better rate/term loan.

You can lower your monthly expenses by refinancing into an interest only loan. This will help you to save a good amount of money from your monthly mortgage payment alone. If you were to consolidate debt in your refinance and switch to an interest only loan this would save you a lot of money per month and truly maximize your monthly cash flow.

Home refinancing is a very common thing to do. Homeowners can tap into the equity in their home to make home improvements, consolidate debt, send a child to college, go on vacation, invest towards your future, and many, many other things by refinancing their homes. Home refinancing is quite a simple process that can normally be handled within a couple of weeks.

If you have no equity in your home to consolidate debt, you can look into obtaining a personal loan. This way you can consolidate all of your monthly debt into one low monthly payment, free up your credit cards again, which will improve your credit scores, and get yourself on a payment plan to actually get somewhere with all of your debt so that you can get it paid off in a timely manner. The most important thing is to make sure that you do not go out and use your credit cards until everything is paid off and even then only use them very sparingly.

The right time to refinance really depends upon your current financial situation and what you need to do to get into a better financial situation. If you are looking to consolidate debt and bills into your mortgage, then you will need to wait until you have enough equity built up into your home to do this. If you simply want a lower rate and or term then you should consult your mortgage professional to see if the benefit of refinancing makes enough financial sense to you. Therefore, each unique situation requires it’s own personal analysis to see when the right time to refinance may be.

The great majority of refinances are cash out refinances to consolidate debt. Many borrowers find that a debt consolidation refinance can actually save them several hundred dollars a month in total payments. For those people with little extra money to spare every month, this can bring a great deal of relief.

Many people have bad credit because they are simply over extended. They have lower credit scores due to carrying heavy loads of debt and sometimes missing payments because they have so many monthly payments. By using your mortgage to consolidate debt, you can improve your credit score. In this case a bad credit loan actually becomes a tool to improve your credit score.