A credit freeze occurs when you notify a credit bureau not to release your credit history without your consent. This is an effective way to combat identity theft since a potential identity thief will not be able to see your credit history even if he has your personal identifying information.

Good credit takes patience and persistence and if you pay your bills on time and keep your credit card balances low over the long haul, you’ll be rewarded with a solid score.

Learning how to recognize credit repair scams will save you pain and money. The scammers promise to remove negative information from your Credit Report, so that you can be approved for future credit. They can’t deliver on those promises, and the fee you pay to them is lost. The good news is that these scams follow the same patterns, so once you understand how they work, you can avoid them.

Apply for a credit card — Chase Freedom offers attractive rewards and consumer-friendly terms and cardholders will earn cash back on purchases and bonuses for card use, in addition to paying no annual fee.

How to Boost Your FICO Score wanted to share the four mistakes that can ‘hurt’ a credit score — be careful not to max out those credit cards. Potential lenders also care about how much a person is charging on their card, because the more they spend the less likely they will be able to repay the debt — this is where credit card utilization comes in.