Good loans require very good credit scores. If you still want to borrow money in this tough economy, you better have very good scores. Below are some ways to maintain it.

Credit monitoring services like ones from myFICO is very good because it automatically keeps track of your credit report and alerts you whenever there are any changes. You can of course choose to do it yourself but that’s 1000x harder.

Of course, there’s always the free credit report that you can get from each of the three credit report agencies per year. To maximize the benefit, separate the time that you get the reports. For example, get one in January, then another one in May and another one in September so you are on top of your credit.

Lenders will just pull your report when you request a loan, so if you are maxed out on your credit, they see it as a no-no. It doesn’t really matter if you pay off your credit cards every month because the utilization rate will be very high.

Every time you apply for credit, they will ding your credit report. If there are too many within a short period of time, the score will be affected because no one with a good financial picture will keep apply for credit. If it’s not absolutely necessary, space out your applications so it doesn’t look suspicious!

Use all your credit cards because having cards canceled on you is not a good sign that you are a good borrower. This will in turn lower your score.

Having more than one credit card will actually help your credit. Lenders will sometimes look at your credit report and deny you because you don’t have enough different forms of borrowing. They see a lack of information as a negative so even though you may have a ton of cash somewhere to pay off any loan, the absence of proof is a big drawback.

Different types of borrowing will help your credit scores because it shows that you have debt and are proven to be able to manage it. Without it, lenders really won’t know how you will react when the big bills come due every month.