 TITLE: Does Getting Married Combine Your Credit Reports? CONTENT: What to Do if Your Spouse Has a Poor Credit Score\n-------------------------------------------------\nThere are ways to support your spouse if they're struggling with poor credit. To start, encourage them to get a free copy of their credit report to view all their accounts and payment history. That can help you both identify which areas to focus on, such as making payments on time, lowering debt balances or lengthening credit history.\nGetting your free credit scores can help both of you improve your credit. It can also help you understand which behaviors or accounts are affecting credit scores most. Many credit card issuers, banks and lenders offer customers scores for free; other personal finance websites and financial institutions also provide free score monitoring to non-customers. A good goal for you and your spouse should be to reach a score of 670 or higher; that's considered a good score by the FICO® Score☉ model, and will qualify you for more financial products at lower interest rates.\nA few key ways to improve credit are to automate monthly payments so your spouse doesn't forget them, and to pay down debts to lower credit utilization, or the amount of debt outstanding compared to the credit limit. Your spouse will save the most money if they target the highest-interest debts first, using the debt avalanche method, but they may feel more accomplished if they pay off smaller debts one by one using the debt snowball method. END