Poor credit is practically an epidemic, thanks to the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality that pervades our culture. Pair that with the fact that there is no mandatory instruction in basic finance in school and you can easily see how so many people get in over their heads where credit is concerned. The good news is that you don’t have to let a few bad decisions saddle you with bad credit for the rest of your life. There are ways to get back in the black and rebuild your credit, no matter how low your rating has dropped. Here are a few simple strategies to consider.

Find out what you’re working with. The first step to rebuilding your credit is finding out what your score is and what infractions you need to clear up in order to being the rebuilding process. This means ordering your free credit score online. Once you can see black marks, you can start to address the worst of your credit issues in order to repair your credit. You might even find some instances of wrongful reporting (if, for example, you’ve paid off a debt and it’s still showing up as being in collections). Keep in mind that some old debt is good, such as regular mortgage payments, so you might not want to remove it. But black marks and credit card debt should definitely be addressed as quickly as possible.

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