All great advice here! Paying down your debt will raise your credit score. Live very frugally, for instance, we're mostly vegetarian due to bills, esp this month. Our credit score is 800+. The higher your credit score, the lower the interest rates on housing loans. A lot of major banks (Chase, etc), have a way of checking your credit score whenever you want without credit score penalties. If you don't have that I think you can sign up for Credit Journey which is by transamerica & you can get your score. GL!
