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There's a myth going around that one offense will put you in severe credit problems and completely destroy your credit scores. Although there is some truth to that, it isn't completely correct. You see, one minor credit mishap will lower your credit score by a few points, not hundreds of points.

Now remember, I said one minor credit mishap, but most of them are minor. But this isn't the real credit problems that most people face. The more serious problems are the ones where there are blatant patterns of credit problems that happen often and consistently. What are these problems you may ask?

Well, here are the top 3 credit problems most people face, and shortly, we will also go through how to avoid them.

1. Late or missed payments in loans or credit cards: lenders look at you pattern of payments and count continual late payments very seriously against you. The reason is simple; they see that you may not be responsible for making timely payments or that you are living above your means.

2. Too much outstanding debt: if your lenders see that you have too much debt, especially compared to your income, this will also destroy your credit score. Again, they will see that you cannot truly pay off your accounts. They consider you as being overextended and know that they probably won't get their money any time soon. This is a huge credit problem that you will want to avoid.

3. Too much credit: this applies to those who have a huge number of credit cards in particular. It's not that having multiple credit cards are bad. It's more about having multiple credit cards with high balances that never seem to decrease. You see, most people in this scenario will just transfer balances back and forth between cards rather than actually pay off the balances.

Now that we've identified the top 3 credit problems that most people face, let's talk briefly about how to avoid them.

As you can imagine, it all comes down to how much credit you have. So the first thing you want to do is take a look at your balances and spread them out equally between the cards that you have. This will bring the balances down so that you aren't maxed out on just a couple of them while having the others without a balance.

The other thing that you want to focus on, which is most important, is that you always pay your bills on time. Even if it's the minimum payment to start with, be sure to pay your monthly expenses. Once you do that, you will be able to turn things around for yourself and start building a strong foundation to get rid of your credit problems.

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Alex Navas is a business and financial coach who writes informative articles on various subjects including credit scoring and credit repair. You can download his free report "Credit Secrets Special Report" just by clicking Avoid Credit Problems.

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