Are you confronted with a possible short sale or foreclosure on your home? If so, you may be wondering how long it will take your FICO scores to FULLY recover after one of these bombshells hits your credit reports. It's a great question, and it happens to be one that we receive emails about every day. Well, now we have some hard data from FICO that finally helps clear up all the confusion around FICO scores, short sales, and foreclosures.

We still use magnetic stripe credit cards in the U.S., and it doesn't seem like a change is on the way anytime soon. On the other hand, many countries outside the U.S. have ditched the swipe and sign process for chip-and-PIN cards - also known as "smart cards". The best part of using these credit cards is that they never leave your hands. They are safer, more efficient, and are arguably better at preventing credit card fraud.

Dear Creditnet: My wife and I have excellent credit scores, but we used to only have one no annual fee credit card with a limit of $10,000 (balance is paid off each month). I recently opened another credit card with better rewards and it has a $20,000 credit limit.

I've been told not to close out our first credit card account, but should I lower the credit limit on it to somewhere around $500 since we won't be using it? Or will our credit scores be negatively affected by lowering our available credit limit from $30,000 to $20,500?

Daylight Saving Time is upon us and spring is right around the corner.   As the yearly weather cycle starts anew, you’re most likely trying to find motivation for spring cleaning and, once again, getting your life in order.  We may not have any advice on how to better organize your house, but we do have a system to get your finances in order.

If you're a Chase Freedom card user, you should already know that you can get 5% cash back on purchases in certain categories that fluctuate every quarter. But did you know that you need to activate this free benefit every quarter?