If you want to whip up a credit catastrophe, miss a payment.
On-time payments account for 35 percent of your credit score. It is the biggest single chunk of the score and it can cost your score 100 points. If you have a high credit score, it could cost you 180 points, according to Lending Tree. The easiest way to never make a mistake is to set up automatic payments.
Other ways to devastate your score: Default on a loan or file for bankruptcy.
Defaulting on a loan usually happens after 90 days without a payment. By the time you hit default, however, your score has already taken a 200 point drop at 30 and 60 days late.
With bankruptcy, you can expect a drop of at least 240 points.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.