Is anyone here in a situation where their credit rating is quite poor?

Mine is, and I'm paying things off now, but it will take a long time to repair my credit rating.  It's very tempting to take out one of those cards 'designed for people with poor credit' just to make regular payments on it and rebuild my rating, but I think that might be a bad idea at this moment in time.

I hate the way they market to people with poor credit - I know I should be paying down existing debts first instead of thinking about the opportunity for even more debt!  Once all the debt is paid off, THEN I'll think about rebuilding my rating.

How do you resist that temptation?

Simply don't do it -- they're dangling the carrot in front of a hungry rabbit, and you're about to pounce!

Why rebuild credit at all?  Simply pay all of your cards off, and strictly use cash after that.

Actually, I'm in the exact opposite credit situation.  I should have a t-shirt that says "I have excellent credit and I know how to use it!"  Trust me... You get bombarded with credit card offers no matter what your situation.

What do you do to avoid the temptation?  It's called a paper shredder!

A poor credit rating is a good thing when you are trying to clear your debts, it helps prevent any more temptation...

Honestly taking out one of those low-credit rating credit cards will probably hurt your rating more than anything else.

I've often used the credit score predictor at MyFico.com to work out a few debt scenarios.  You can improve your credit MUCH faster by simply paying off your debts, increasing the amount of available credit to used credit ratio, and getting as much time between now and the last overdue payment that you made.

I had to repair my credit about two years ago when my wife and I decided to buy a house.  It took me about 10 months to increase my score by about 100 points.  I did it by not taking out a single loan, making sure every debt that we did have was paid on time, and doing everything I could to get rid of "bad debt" (credit cards, lines of credit, etc - I didn't worry about things like student loans or our car payments).

Overall, TA is right, though (at least in my opinion).  The more you can pay for things upfront, the happier you will be.  Credit is supposed to be used as a tool for very specific scenarios, not as a way of life.

Exactly, that's how they suck you in.

You could probably go into a bank, get a cettificate of deposit, then use it as collateral against the secured credit card, this way your "deposit" earns interest to offset the interest charged.

Just a thought.

Dan

Don't you need credit to buy a house?

Not if you take it from someone by buying a tax lien then hoping they dont pay
Get a house for pennies on the dollar if that.
but that's a whole nother topic.

Dan

Mine is very horrible,  im going to go bankrupt so that way i an start all  over because im not going to be able to pay off everything that i own.