Spektor: In general, once someone resolves a collection account or account where they have had late payments, it usually takes about a year for your credit score to return to where it was before the late payments. One way to help is to open a secure credit card, which is a credit card where you pay a deposit equal to the card’s limit or where the limit is tied to your savings balance. This kind of card was created to help people build and restore credit.

St. Clair: I feel like a good rule of thumb is if you have to take on debt, always just try to find the lowest interest rate possible. If you have a major purchase that’s $5,000, for example, and you don’t have the ability to pay outright or don’t have access to a 0% APR credit card, consider a personal loan. The monthly payment might be more manageable than you’d expect, and personal loans are weighted more favorably than credit cards on your credit score.

Also, if you have a ton of credit card debt or debt in general, and are having problems making monthly payments, cash flow issues, or trouble staying afloat, look into the GreenPath program through FECU. I’ve used it, and it really helped me out. Along with helping you figure out payments, they can help you budget.

Spektor: As someone who came out of college with a bunch of credit card debt, it was really scary for me early on to get those credit card statements, lay them all out, and start looking at what the different balances were, what the interest rates were, and what the minimum payments were. I would say the first step is to face what your debts are—write out each card, write down the interest rate on each card, etc. You’re probably going to be alarmed to find that some are over 20%. If you make the minimum payment on such a credit card, you’ll never pay it off. So just face what you’ve got, and then once you have the information, you can start to look at consolidation options. I would say first look into personal loans, see what different rates are, see if you qualify. Every bank or lender has different lending rules. Even if you can get a loan from mom and dad, or an uncle or aunt, so you can consolidate to get you back on your feet and your FICO score will rebound, that can be a lifesaver.

Obviously, if you own a home, a home equity line of credit is the fastest, easiest way for you to knock out that debt and have your FICO rebound.

St. Clair: If you have 9 or 10 credit cards, it’s not a bad idea to close some of them, especially ones that don’t have good benefits or have high interest rates. When we talk about keeping your oldest line of credit open, it’s really a numbers game of what to do to keep your credit score as high as possible. One of those ways is to keep your oldest card(s) open. I keep the first credit card I ever got (it only has a thousand-dollar credit limit) for that reason specifically. I don’t even request a higher limit because it’s just there to be the oldest account. But if you’re in the process of repairing your credit, I don’t know if that would be top of my priority. It’s more about when you’re in the game of how high I can get this credit score so I can get a top tier interest rate.

Spektor: I would add that when you start having more than three credit cards—let’s say you’ve got 10 and a bunch of them were opened around the same time—your credit score is not going to plummet if you close your Gap card, your Macy’s card, etc. I’ve closed so many of those that I opened a few decades ago, and my credit score is still really high.

Once you get to a certain age, once you have your three or four (or even two) cards that you’re using regularly, that will be your credit history. If you’ve got a decade or more with those, don’t worry about those older cards.

Spektor: The [credit score] algorithm likes when you pay off your credit. When you use your credit cards and you pay them off in full every month, that’s the best scenario you could be in. If you think you need to carry a balance to improve your credit score, you do not. That’s a myth. The best practice is to charge whatever you need, and maybe set the card up on auto-pay so it gets paid off in full each month. Your credit score is going to be high because you don’t have revolving credit going into the next month. It also keeps your card active so your creditor doesn’t close the credit card.

Spektor: We’ve done home equity lines of credit where some people have 20 credit cards, and they’ve consolidated over $100,000 worth of debt. For a particular member, we required them to close about 10 of those accounts because there were just too many. It did not hurt their credit score. He got that home equity line of credit, but it was at a higher interest rate because at the time his FICO score was really low because he had all that debt. But once he paid it all down to zero, guess what? His credit score shot up because he didn’t have any revolving debt, and he refinanced that home equity line of credit six months down the road to a lower interest rate. What I would say is yes, you can close down cards that you’ve had open. But don’t close all your cards. That will plummet your credit score. If you pay them off, keep two or three open and close the rest. But not the one with the longest history—even if it’s just a department store card.

Spektor: That’s okay, because once you pay off the missing payments, then it’s paid. You’ll see a history of maybe some late payments, and then you’ll have a clean credit history going forward in increments that show monthly that you have on-time payments. You don’t have to close accounts because of delinquent past histories.

Spektor: If you limit your credit usage to one or two credit cards, when you use your credit cards and pay them off every month—most credit card companies are giving you 1% to 2% cash back on whatever you charge. Not all credit cards are equal, so find out how much cash back you get. I probably get thousands of dollars in cash back every year. Just throw it in a high yield savings or use it to invest. Get loyal to one or two cards. I think that’s the way to go.

St. Clair: I can’t speak too much about getting decoupled from loans. I would say if you’re going to sign up for a loan with somebody—a house loan, a credit card, whatever it is—be really, really sure. I’ve spoken with a lot of people who are like, “Oh, I have this card, but my ex-wife hasn’t paid it,” or something like that. Personally, I would not take on debt with somebody unless I absolutely had to. You can have a joint bank account. There are even some cards that let you have your own credit lines. But in general, tread carefully.

Spektor: I would agree with that. The only situation where that’s not the case on a credit card is when, let’s say, I add my spouse as an authorized user. Authorized users can be added and taken off to help boost someone’s score, but even that algorithm has changed recently. If you want to authorize someone to have access to your card and to use it, you can do that temporarily and then remove them when you want them off. But if you actually submit a credit card application with them and they run your joint credit, you’re locked in until that debt is paid off. It’s the same on mortgage loans. The only way to get someone off the loan is to refinance out of that loan and get a new loan because it’s a contract.

Spektor: Most lenders, including First Entertainment, have something in their digital banking where you can view your credit score without your score being affected. When you’re going car shopping, don’t let them run your credit. You can say, ” I don’t want you to run my credit. I’m looking in my digital banking app. My FICO score is 740, so just tell me what you can offer based on that.” When car companies run your credit, your score will drop because it’s the type of inquiry (like credit card inquiries) that negatively impacts your credit. Mortgage inquiries do not impact your FICO score. Make sure not to have any inquiries before you’re about to apply for a mortgage loan because it will drop your score.

St. Clair: To add to that, looking at your credit score on Experian’s website, through soft monitoring tools, or through First Entertainment’s app, is free and doesn’t affect your score. The two types of pulls are soft pulls and hard pulls. Soft pulls don’t always affect your credit score. Hard pulls do, but the lender has to ask you before they do either type. Experian is the number one credit monitoring that I’d recommend.

Spektor: I encourage all of you, if you have credit card balances that are over 30% of the limit, note what your credit score is today, pay them all down to at least below 30% of the limit, and watch how much your score goes up. You’ll be pleasantly surprised that it’s really just that algorithm. It’s just a formula. And you don’t have to pay a balance down to zero for your score to go up.