We all deal with having to start our credit history from zero at some point in time. For me, it began when I was out of the country for 7 years. When I returned to the United States, I tried to apply for a credit card, only to find out that no one would extend me credit because of my lack of credit history. Apparently, no credit is even worse than bad credit.

It can take years to build up a credit rapport, especially when your history is blank. But, I managed to turn my credit around in just 8 months, with a little research and a lot of hard work. I was in the market for a house and a car, and I needed all three credit agencies to report that my credit was excellent.

I started off by calling up some friends in the lending business, by searching the internet, and by reading every book I could find. After that, I was able to concoct a plan that would eventually get my credit rating from zero to 80% higher than the other debtors in this country, and it only took me 8 months to do so.

The first step is to gather a list of banks and credit unions in your area. I found two credit unions and two banks within all within two city blocks of each other. I made sure I would be allowed to join the two credit unions and that everyone offered online banking for free. My first day of leg work was about to begin.

In the first credit union I opened a checking account with $10,000. I asked for a secured personal loan of $8,000 against my deposit. I explained that I needed to establish credit and they were happy to help. In each case used the free online banking to setup auto-pay the loan each and every month. I walked out of the bank with $8,000 in borrowed cash against my, now frozen, $10,000 deposit. As the loan is paid back, the funds are released from the bank.

Credit union two was right across the street. I walked in with $8,000 and opened a new checking account. Again I asked for their help in establishing my credit and requested a loan for $7,000 against my $8,000 deposit. Off to the next institution depositing $7,000 and receiving a loan for $6000. Finally the last bank gave me a loan of $5,000 in return for my $6,000 deposit.

I started to get worried when I added it all up, and realized that I owed four different institutions $26,000 combined. I started to think about what I had gotten myself into, how hard it was going to be to keep track of my monthly payments, and that it was all going to come crashing down and destroy my credit forever. I decided to use online banking to handle the monthly payments, and it turns out that it was incredibly simple. The loans were all paid off within 8 months, and I created a record of being able to pay of large amounts of money each month.

When it was over, I got a little over $8,000 back on my initial $10,000. The banks and the credit unions ended up with the rest of the money to cover interest charges, but I ended up with an excellent credit rating in a short amount of time, and I know have four credit cards, two of which carry limits of $25,000 each.

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