building credit

A Secured Credit Card Can Repair Your Credit Score — Here's How to Pick the Best

A secured credit card can help improve your creditworthiness, but some secured cards do more harm than good. Here's how to choose one that's right for you.

Save $70,000 (or More!) With 4 Simple Credit Score Boosts

The benefits of good credit — reduced interest paid on purchases — can add up to many thousands of dollars. Learn how to start improving your credit today.

Why You Need Credit — and How to Build It From Scratch

Learn how to create a great credit score even if you don't have an extensive financial history.

Don't Get Taken by the Latest Secure Credit Card Scam

A fake bank is offering phony secured credit cards to consumers with troubled credit histories, and reading the fine print may not be enough to protect you.

10 Surprising Ways to Negatively Affect Your Credit Score

Even when you aren't applying for a credit card or loan, your credit score can be affected by a variety of actions — even forgetting to return your library books.

What Are Secured Credit Cards?

Learn how secured credit cards are different from regular credit cards and prepaid cards, how they help rebuild credit, and how to choose one.

How to Rebuild Your Credit in 8 Simple Steps

Bad credit will cost you more for insurance and loans, and may close some opportunities altogether. Learn how to rebuild a poor credit rating to an excellent one.

Surprising Things That Can Kill Your Credit

We're all familiar with the damage a late payment can do to a credit score. But there are plenty of other credit-sinkers you might not know about.

3 Ways To Build Good Business Credit With Bad Personal Credit

A bad personal credit rating is not the end of the world -- or your small business. It's a problem to be managed, just like any other.

Building a Credit History

A good credit history can save you a small fortune over a lifetime. Here's how to build one.

Co-Signing for a Loan: 4 Things to Consider First

Co-signing a loan for anyone, including your child or best friend, could affect your credit. What to know before you sign.

How to Improve Your Credit Score

By following a few simple steps you can improve your financial situation and credit score.

Life After Bankruptcy: What's Next?

There are repercussions to filing for bankruptcy, but like with other setbacks in life, you can recover. There is always hope!

How to File For Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is the last resort to dealing with debt: when a person finds himself in so much debt that paying it off simply isn't an option, bankruptcy can be the only way to handle

How to Botch Up, Then Peddle Back to Good Credit

As a young adult, I thought I had a firm grasp on being financially responsible. But I never really understood my credit score, or even why it was important to build a good score.

Is your credit score suffering without your knowledge?

Credit card companies are tricky little jerks during the best of times. But now, with a lousy economic forecast and limited access to funds that can be loaned to consumers, banks a