How Do Late Payments Affect My Credit Score?

A high credit score is crucial; it’ll improve your chances of being approved for low-interest credit cards, auto loans and mortgages, proving to lenders that you’re a trustworthy borrower and saving you thousands in interest. Maintaining good credit isn’t as simple as it sounds, however.

Sometimes it can feel like you don’t have enough control over your own credit report. After all, if you want to save $1,000 in a year, you can take the 52-Week Savings Challenge. But how do you tackle the complex task of boosting your credit score?

Welcome to GOBankingRates’ Credit Score Challenge, where you’ll be given a new tip each week to improve your credit. Hopefully, by the end of the challenge, you’ll have accumulated a host of healthy financial habits and raised your credit score substantially.

Here’s the first step: You need to check your credit score — after all, how will you know how much you need to improve if you don’t have a base number? There are a number of free and fee-based credit monitoring sites out there that will give you a credit score from one of the three major credit bureaus: TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. Several banks and credit card issuers also offer free credit reports and scores as a perk — check with your financial institution to see if you’re eligible.

Once your receive your FICO score — it will be between 300 and 850 — read up on what a good credit score is and what you should be shooting for. Then you can start building your credit today with tip No. 1.

Read more: 5 Quick Ways to Raise Your Credit Score

Credit Score Tip No. 1: Don’t Forget Your Due Dates

Paying your bills on time has more of an effect on your credit score than you might think — in fact, your payment history is the single most important aspect that goes into your credit, making up 35 percent of your score. You should be paying all your bills on time, but keep in mind that some bills are automatically added to your credit report, while others aren’t.

These payments are automatically noted on your credit report:

• Mortgage loans
• Auto loans
• Credit card bills
• Student loans

On the other hand, these payments would probably only show up on your credit report if you were delinquent and they were sent to debt collections:

• Monthly rent payments
• Utility bills (gas, electric, etc.)
• Cellphone payments
• Cable bills
• Insurance bills

Here’s the good news: In some cases, you can still get credit for good behavior. If you have low or no credit, consider calling your utility company and requesting that it report your on-time bill payments to the credit bureaus. This may or may not work, depending largely on the good humor of the person on the phone and the company’s policy, but it can’t hurt.

Related: How It’s Possible to Have a Perfect Payment History and Bad Credit

How to Pay Your Bills on Time

1. Make a Schedule With Reminders

If disorganization has led you to miss bill payments in the past, the best tip is to mark due dates on a a calendar and set up alerts on your smartphone. Take advantage of email reminders from lenders, so you’ll know a week or two in advance when your due dates are arriving. While these dates might become second nature over time, don’t place so much pressure on trying to memorize them — set up as many reminders as possible.

2. Set up Automatic Payments

Whether you have due date absentmindedness or you’re just too busy to sit down and manually pay your bills, help yourself out by signing up for automatic payments. Just remember to have enough money in your checking account each month, or you could be subject to a hefty non-sufficient funds fee from your bank.

3. Double Up, If Possible

If you’ve got enough income or a savings stockpile to spare, pay two months of bills at a time. If you’re making manual payments, this will give you one less bill to worry about the following month. If you make this a habit, just be aware of any prepayment penalties your lender might impose and make sure your budget can support you doubling up on payments.

Related: Is My Credit Score Enough to Buy a House?

4. Partial Payments Are a No-No

One credit myth is that paying off some balances in full (like your credit card) will hurt your credit — this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the best thing you can do for your credit each month is pay off your credit card and strive to make more than just the minimum payments on other debts.

On the other hand, paying only part of a minimum payment on time will hurt your credit score just as much as if you’d never paid it.

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How Do Late Payments Affect My Credit Score?

This article by Paul Sisolak first appeared on GoBankingRates.com and was distributed by the Personal Finance Syndication Network.