It Only Takes One Visit With a Financial Pro to Hike Your Credit Score

Worried about your credit score's impact on the financial side of your life? If it's low, you should be.

For instance, the long-term cost difference between a 30-year mortgage loan with a 725 FICO credit score and a 625 FICO credit core adds up to over $20,000 (assuming a mortgage rate of 3.625% versus 4.125% over 30 years, which translates into a monthly payment of $912 for the higher score and $969 for the lower score, multiplied by 360 months.)

A lower interest payment is just one great reason why you should always be working to improve your credit score. "Because credit scores are so closely tied to interest rates offered to borrowers, a credit score difference of even 50 points can mean substantial financial savings for large financial transactions like buying a home, financing a car or consolidating debt," says Doug Lebda, founder and CEO of LendingTree, which recently published a study calling San Francisco the "top credit score" city in the U.S. "Knowing and managing your credit score is especially important in this volatile interest rate environment," he says.

(To check the financial impact of your potential mortgage loan, check out BankingMyWay's Mortgage Loan Calculator.)

The good news is that even a single meeting with a credit expert can move your credit score in the right direction.

According to the Coalition to Improve Credit Education, seven out of ten consumers who spend even one day with a credit expert will increase their credit scores. Another 38% see their credit scores rise by 20 points, and 23% see their scores move up an entire "band" or credit class (such as from subprime to prime). And 93% of financial consumers say they have a better understanding of the actions they need to take to improve their credit score.

When you make that visit, make sure to bring some important documents, like your Social Security number, a bank statement, your most recent tax returns, a copy of your most recent credit FICO score and any outstanding bills you have. All can be instrumental in helping a credit professional understand your situation better and creating a blueprint to improve your credit situation.

Also on the first day, be prepared to look at solutions a credit expert may offer not as a knock against your personal finance skills, but as legitimate ways to get out of a credit mess. For instance, expect your credit professional to advise a change in your credit card strategy.

"Hands down, one of the best ways to boost your credit score is to move your high-interest revolving credit card debt off your cards and onto a fixed-term, fixed-rate unsecured personal loan," says Ibrahim Dusi, chief risk officer at Payoff.com in Los Angeles. "This helps lower your revolving credit utilization, which heavily contributes to your 'amounts owed' - or 30% of your FICO score. When we do this with credit clients at Payoff, our members see an average credit score increase of 40 points."

If you're looking for some credit, even though your own FICO score is relatively low, bring that up with your credit expert. He or she is likely aware of what lending industry professionals call "alternative trade lines."

"When trying to get financing for a home loan, car loan, or credit card, having established credit is important in the qualifying process," states David Hosterman,a lending professional and branch manager at Castle & Cooke Mortgage, LLC, in Greenwood Village, Colo. "But in many cases consumers have limited credit on their credit reports so we take into account what are called alternative credit trade lines."

Alternative trade lines can mean personal financial history, from rental history, car insurance, utilities, monthly subscriptions services, cell phone - things that may not show up on a traditional credit report. "Essentially, when we have customers who have alternative credit we are looking for a pattern of good credit and on-time payments with those companies for a period of 12 months or longer."

"Once we have documentation of these accounts we request a credit supplement through our credit vendor to add these accounts to the credit report as credit supplements," he adds. "The credit vendor will verify the accuracy of these accounts prior to updating them as a credit supplement."

Another good topic to bring up when meeting with a credit professional - what debt do you pay off first for maximum impact? Again, credit cards come into play, experts say.

"Paying off credit card debt is the one thing, other than correcting errors, that will improve your score immediately," says Todd Huettner, founder of Huettner Capital, a real estate lender in Denver.

A client Huettner is working with right now had a score of a 650 last year. "But he is still carrying $10,000 in credit card debt on two nearly maxed out cards," Huettner says. "If he pays those off, his score will probably jump 20 to 60 points overnight. I realize that people can't usually just pay off their credit card debt overnight either. However, they need to bite the bullet and pay off their cards."

Basically, just hearing your credit expert tell you the path to good credit is simple - pay on time and don't carry debt - is a big help, emotionally.

"The problem it is not easy to do and requires self control," Huettner says. "After all, spending sprees are much more fun."