 TITLE: How to Recover From Bankruptcy CONTENT: Work on Rebuilding Your Credit\n------------------------------\nOnce you have a solid sense of your credit picture, plan to monitor your credit scores monthly and check your credit reports annually. You can then take steps to begin building up your credit. Start by reviewing the factors that determine your credit scores, and habits that help them improve, and then consider these tried-and-true tactics:\n*   **Take out a credit-builder loan at your local credit union**. As the name implies, these loans are designed to help people establish or rebuild credit. The amount you borrow—typically no more than $1,000—is placed in a special savings account, where it earns interest but is inaccessible to you until the loan is paid in full. You make a fixed payment (with interest) each month for a set period ranging from six to 24 months, after which the funds are yours. (Some credit unions also let you keep some or all of your interest payments.)\n    As long as you pay on time every month—and after a bankruptcy you should vow never to make a late payment again—your payments will appear as positive entries on your credit report and will tend to increase your credit score. To get the maximum benefit to your payment history, consider asking for the longest-available repayment period. That'll add to the total interest you'll pay, but if you're keeping the interest payments anyway, that just means you'll save a little extra.\n*   **Get a secured credit card**. Another product popular at credit unions, but also offered by some banks and other institutions, secured credit cards do not require traditional credit checks. To get one, you must put down a cash deposit, and that sum typically becomes your borrowing limit. If you fail to pay your bills, the lender can take the deposit. If you use the card sparingly, but use it every month and always pay off your balance in full, you'll establish an additional pattern of positive payments on your credit report. A good trick for making this work is to use the card for a payment that recurs every month—such as a phone bill, gym membership and the like, and then set up an automatic payment to the card account through your checking account.\n*   **Consider credit card offers**. After you've logged a year or two of positive payments via a credit-builder loan, a secured credit card or both, start watching your inbox and mailbox for credit card offers. The pickings may be slim: borrowing limits low, interest rates relatively high and fees less than ideal. But if you apply for and get a card, you can begin proving you can handle mainstream credit. As with a secured card, use your new card sparingly but regularly, to create a pattern of on-time payments.\nThere Is Life After Bankruptcy\n------------------------------\nIf you follow these steps, and take care to avoid repeating past missteps, you'll find that your credit scores will begin improving within a few years after your bankruptcy filing. And by the time the bankruptcy \"falls off\" your credit report after seven or 10 years (you don't need to do anything to remove it), you may find yourself eligible for a wide range of credit, at reasonable rates. END