With banks looking to give loans to good lenders, millions of Americans want to figure out how to increase FICO scores, remove marks from credit reports, and just generally keep their credit clean. To make getting good credit even more confusing, the enactment of the Credit CARD Act alters much credit repair advice of the past.

New or experienced at maintaining your credit, you’ll want to get all three copies of your credit report every year, which are subsequently free once a year. You need to make sure you are familiar with all the activity on the accounts.

If you are considering a loan, you’ll also want to purchase your FICO score from TransUnion or Equifax (Experian no longer sells FICO scores), which ranges from 350-800 but can vary. A score over 750 sends you into an excellent rating, which means you’re a prime candidate for getting the loan you want.

The two biggest factors that give you a great FICO are history of payment and how much you owe. Therefore, paying your bills on time and keeping your debts down is the best strategy when maintaining great credit. You want your credit-to-debt ratio to be low.

Length of credit is another important factor. For example, if you took out student loans and were able to pay them on time off over a ten year period of time, you’ll be looked upon favorably when it comes time to landing the lowest car or mortgage interest rate possible.

This leads us to keeping credit cards with high limits open by charging a few items every few months. If not, the banks will see you as a “deadbeat” lender and opt to close your account, which they must now warn you with a 45-day notice before doing so according to the Credit CARD Act.

Also, keep in mind the credit crunch has caused a lot of lenders to reduce your previous credit limits, which is still legal, and can drastically change your what you owe to what you can borrow ratio. Don’t go inquiring about a lot of new cards or loans to try and up this ratio, which in turn only hurts your score.

Finally, have emergency cash in a regular savings account. The amount must be at least $500 and can be as high as a year’s worth of income. In case disaster strikes, you need to count on cash rather than credit cards, which can quickly lead to debt and crash years of careful credit repair in a single charge.