When thinking of credit; most people think credit cards, home mortgages, personal loans and what not. An important aspect of credit report is almost always overlooked and that is your utility bill.
If you think about it, you use electricity, gas, water and any other utility first and then pay bills at the end of the month. So you are using these services on credit and that is why your credit report has a section on payment of utility bills. When you pay your utility bills on time you are building up your credit and not paying these in time, hampers your credit.
This brings up an interesting point. For someone who is starting off on building up credit or looking to rebuild credit, utility bill payments are a good way to score some points on your credit report. Most people will be able to get utilities on their name and then simply paying off your water or electricity bill every month will help you build your credit history.
If you don’t have credit history or have a damaged credit history most companies will still allow you to hold utilities in your name but will have you make a deposit in order to secure their payments.
This still works in your favor because once you get the utility in your name that will help you build your credit history. Utilities also include post paid phones so if T-Mobile refuses you to give you a post paid plan on your name and Verizon does (different companies have different policies) apart from the free minutes and cost you should seriously consider that having the phone in your name will help you build your credit history.
So if you are looking at building your credit history, make sure you get all the utilities as well as phone plans in your own name to gain advantage of these payments in your credit history.
