Good credit takes patience and persistence and if you pay your bills on time and keep your credit card balances low over the long haul, you’ll be rewarded with a solid score.

How to Boost Your FICO Score wanted to share the four mistakes that can ‘hurt’ a credit score — be careful not to max out those credit cards. Potential lenders also care about how much a person is charging on their card, because the more they spend the less likely they will be able to repay the debt — this is where credit card utilization comes in.

Part of rebuilding your credit is proving that you can pay your bills on time. If your bad credit episode left you without any credit cards, you’ll have to open new ones.

A few credit score points can mean the difference between a good mortgage rate, a lousy one or getting a loan at all. But take heart — If errors are dragging down your score, you can get them fixed, just in time for your much-anticipated closing.

Credit reporting bureaus continually update credit reports as they receive information from lenders. Your credit score may change with these updates as lenders add new information to your credit report but also as old information drops off your report. How updates affect your credit score can depend on your overall credit history.