Credit Score

• Your credit score is determined by a number of factors. According to creditkarma.com, it is determined by the current balances on your open credit card accounts (called "utilization"), how long you have had each open credit line, your percentage of on-time payments, the total number of accounts you have, your total debt, your debt-to-income ratio and the number of recent "hard" credit inquiries made by others researching how well you manage your finances after you apply for loans, housing, employment and services such as utilities.
  
  

Government Advice

• The U.S. government runs a website devoted specifically to educating consumers on credit card issues: mymoney.gov/credit.shtml. This is an authoritative source on how to deal with a variety of credit issues, including repairing your credit and improving your credit report.
  
  

Free Credit Reports

• The major credit tracking bureaus--Equifax, Experian and TransUnion--run a website that allows every consumer to request three free credit reports each year. By staggering these requests, obtaining a free report from just one of the three credit bureaus every four months, you can check your credit status for free three times per year.
  
  

Blogs

• Blogs are websites written by individuals that follow certain topics, and many blogs follow credit repair and how to improve your credit score. Some of the best include thesimpledollar.com, getrichslowly.org and mint.com/blog/.
  
  

Considerations

• Remember that repairing your credit takes time. Paying down debt and changing spending habits also takes time. Educate yourself using these resources to help repair your credit that much sooner.