Friends were coming for dinner, and my husband decided to be helpful by getting rid of a stack of papers I had out on the kitchen counter. Unbeknown to me, he swooped everything up and stashed it on top of the refrigerator. He thinks that’s a great storage place because no one under six-feet-two can touch anything that’s up there.

So we have a lovely dinner party, and three weeks later I finally get around to standing on a chair to clean on top of the refrigerator. That’s when I discover that my Visa bill has been rotting away unnoticed; and as of that very day, I am 31 days late.

“What’s this?” I shriek, wild-eyed with horror.

For me, the Queen of Credit, to be past the 30-day mark and get a “late pay” on my credit report is totally unacceptable. ...

Get Some Aggressive Ways to Fix Your Credit now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.