Now, after reading the title, you know that we mean bad credit, but why call it challenged in the first place? Are we just trying to spare your feelings and make it easier on you to take the information? Not really, though that’s a secondary goal. In all honestly it’s just about making sure that you really understand the nature of credit.

You see, if we only refer to it as bad credit, then you go off thinking that there’s no way that you can ever have good credit. Challenged credit means that there are obstacles in front of you temporarily to good credit. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person. Because of all of the things that require credit checking these days, we tend to use credit scores and information as a way to judge character. We see someone that has good credit as being more worth our time than someone that has challenged credit.

Yet if you have challenged credit right now, you should understand that not all hope has been lost. It’s not impossible get turn things around. You just need to make sure that you understand how to get things moving in the right direction.

First and foremost, you need to see what’s actually in your credit file. You should get one free report every year from every authority that’s authorized to collect that type of information on you. This means that you get a chance every year to check through your records and make sure that everything is correct the way it needs to be.

Keep in mind that incorrect information that is accurate is not wrong — it’s just negative against you. What you will need to do is try to balance it against other things rather than just feeling like it’s the end of the world. There are a lot of different things in play when you start talking about your credit file. It’s quite possible to have things drop off your file after a long time. Your credit will change as those information points are removed from your record.

That’s when you want to start applying for new credit in order to rebuild. Don’t run away from credit — if you can get small cards and show that you truly do want to preserve your credit, it can only get better from here!