Improving your credit score takes time and effort. Damaging it, or ruining it altogether is easier than you might think. All it takes is a slip-up here, a late payment there, and then your credit score is damaged. It doesn’t take much to hurt your credit, either. And, if you’ve made more than your share of credit mistakes, you won’t have many options the next time you are in the market for a loan or a credit card. You’ll pay the price for your misadventures, in the form of high interest rates and exorbitant fees.

The easiest way to hurt your credit is to break any or all of the rules that are important to lenders and creditors, which we’ll go over in detail here.

- Being late with bill payments. One third of your FICO score is based on your bill-paying track record. It’s been said that a payment that’s 90 days late is just as bad as filing for bankruptcy, or a repossession. However, sometimes in life things go wrong and maybe you aren’t able to get that payment out on time.

Most lenders will work with you to a point, and they are usually willing to let an “oops” here and there go. Just try to bring the account current as soon as you can, and don’t skip payments. If you can only afford to pay the minimum, do that. It’s better than doing nothing at all!

If you know ahead of time that you won’t be able to pay on schedule, call your lender and explain your situation. Hopefully, they’ll be understanding and give you a little “wiggle room”. It doesn’t always work, but if you’ve had a history of on-time payments for years, it can go a long way.

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