Fixing your credit yourself doesn’t have to be as hard as it’s made out to be. If you’ve been turned down a few times because of your low score it’s easy to start feeling like you’re doomed forever, but the truth is that there are many small changes you can make that will have a huge impact.

Before you can do anything you need to get a copy of your credit report, which you can do free (once a year) online. Your score is calculated based on information in this report, so you’ll need this to know what you need to work on.

Probably the biggest thing you can do to help yourself, that takes a bit more effort and time for most, is to pay down any balances you have open. This will go a long way towards fixing your credit. Of course, many don’t have the option to do this immediately, but over time this is the best thing you can do to help yourself.

Once you have your report the first thing you’re going to want to do, because it is the easiest and fastest, is check over your report for mistakes. We’re not really interested in things like misspellings of your name, we’re looking for accounts you have paid off in full marked open, or overdue. An important factor in calculating your score is the ratio of the credit you’ve used, versus that which is available to you. Look at where your card limits are listed and check to see if they’re correct, if they are marked as lower you’ll want to have this fixed. Any mistakes you find you can call and ask companies to change them, if they’re unhelpful keep calling until it gets fixed.

As a general rule, on a month to month basis, I recommend using less than thirty percent of your limit on your cards, and paying them off in full each month. This will give you a healthy record of using your finances sparingly and carefully.

While there, of course, more things you can to help fix your credit yourself, these steps will give you a good running start.