Your Top October Money Questions Answered

Every week, we answer money questions from around the web on the NerdWallet app. Here are three trending questions from the month of October:

Rebuilding your credit can take time, but there are ways to speed up the process.

first, Check your credit report For mistakes that are dragging down your score. An account may contain an error or need to be updated.

Next, pay your bills on time every month. Missing a payment or making a late payment can lower your score for up to seven years. If you’ve already missed a payment, make it right away. Make the same payment and ask your lender to remove the missed payment from its report to the credit bureau.

Also look at your usage. Look for a high balance on your credit cards that is eating up more than 30% of your total credit limit. Lowering that balance until it’s below the 30th threshold can improve your score.

Another way to rebuild credit is to call your credit card issuer and ask to increase your credit limit. A higher credit limit can also result in a lower credit utilization rate.

You can also ask a family member who has good credit if they agree to add you as an authorized user on one of their higher limit credit cards. Or consider using a secure card, where you put the front storage down. These last two options are best for people who don’t currently have many accounts on their credit report, perhaps because they’re just starting out.

While Credit rebuilding It doesn’t happen overnight, but taking these steps can help improve your score for months and years to come.

Prioritizing competing goals — like paying off debt and saving more money — is one of the hardest parts of money management. There’s no formula that works for everyone, so the decision comes down to your specific situation.

At the top of the priority list is making sure you have an emergency fund that can cover your expenses in the event of a job loss or other unexpected financial emergency. Building the financial 500 is a good first step toward financial security. Then, keep growing from there.

Once you have this emergency fund established, it’s time to take a closer look at debt. Do you have high interest credit card debt? Is your debt primarily low-interest student loan debt? What about mortgages?

If you have high-interest debt, then paying it off may come before other goals because the interest is likely to drag on your budget. Using a Online loan calculator It can help you figure out how much of a burden it is.

After taking inventory of your debt, you can choose a method to pay it off. Consider this Snowball method or The avalanche method, And evolve over time.

Once you’ve dealt with an emergency fund and high-interest debt, it’s time to weigh the pros and cons of saving and other forms of debt repayment. Do you want to put any extra funds into a high-yield savings account or long-term investment? Do you want to make one? Additional mortgage payments?

These are good questions to ask because it means you’ve already taken care of the essentials. Now you can take an extra step on your journey to financial security. There are no right or wrong answers – just a decision based on your personal preferences and goals.

The end of the year brings a lot of deadlines, but there’s still time to meet them. Here are a few to mark on the calendar.

1. Consider last-minute contributions to employer-sponsored retirement accounts. If you have a 401(k), December 31st is your last chance to contribute money for the year. In 2025, Contribution limits 23,500 (or 31,000,000) if you are over 50.

3. Make any desired charitable contributions for the year. You have until December 31st if you want Itemized Deduction for the year

Finally, you may also want to use the last few months of the year as a self-imposed deadline for completing financial overdos. Consider the following tasks: