Living with bad credit hurts. But not all is lost. You can fix your credit report, by following certain tips and tactics. To fix your credit, you need to raise your credit score and remove any negative items. Here are 8 credit repair steps to get you started:

1. Know what’s on your report: You must get a copy of your credit report right away. For credit repair purposes, avoid free credit reports. Why? Well, free reports increase dispute reinvestigation time from 30 days to 45 days. The less time the bureaus and creditors/collectors have the better.

2. Know your score: Though you can get free credit reports from all the major repotting agencies, at least once a year, you must pay for your credit score. And, you don’t want just any score. You want the true FICO score that most lenders use, that’s only offered by MyFico or Equifax.

3. Reduce your credit card balance(s): 30% of your credit score depends on this. Depending on who you ask, you should keep your balances below 30% or 50 % of each card’s limit. 30% appears to be the figure most experts agree on. This alone can give your score a much-need (and quick) boost. Avoid maxing out on your credit cards even if you pay off in full each month.

4. Begin to pay your bills on time. Though this takes a few months to take effect, it counts for 35% of your score, which is quite high. Also, any late payments will counter your credit fixing efforts as late payments are devastating to your score.

5.  Review your credit reports: Check for inaccurate information. Mistakes happen, more times than the bureaus would like us to believe. Check for errors in accounts such as names; dates accounts started or closed; types of accounts, and yes, even duplicates. Dispute any errors with the bureaus or furnishers (creditors/collectors) in writing.

6. Dispute old negative items: Though this no longer works as well as it used to – thanks to unscrupulous credit repair companies – it’s still worth a try. Bureaus have 30 days to verify accounts, and if you’re lucky creditors some might never verify. A long-short, but just might work. You could also try disputing old negative entries with the original creditor. With all the business mergers going on, records might not be all that straight.

7. You can also negotiate with creditors and collectors to delete negative items from your report. Typically, creditors will not do this, but collectors might especially if it’s part of a pay-off deal. Expect some collectors will be harder to deal with than others on this.

8. Don’t close old open accounts that have balances. Old accounts help build your credit history, which accounts for 10% of your score. 10% may not seem like much, but it could mean the difference between good and mediocre credit.

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5. Credit Repair, Remove Negative Items: Can It Be Done?