It can be quite beneficial to know a few credit repair secrets when your credit score is lower than you would like. A lot of hucksters will promise to fix your credit for you, but they are limited to how much they can really do on your behalf. That doesn't mean you have to just let your score stay low, though. With that in mind, here are some things you can do to start bringing your score back up.

1. Get a copy of all three of your credit reports. If you live in the US you are--by law--allowed to get one free copy of your credit report each year. What you may not know is that there are three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax) and you should get a copy of each one. That's because not all creditors use the same agency, so you need to get all three to get the full picture of where your credit stands. Remember, you can get a new copy once per year, so do it every year to stay up-to-date.

2. Look for mistakes. Let's face it, people make mistakes. You are dealing with three different agencies, each of which is dealing with any number of creditors; that means there are plenty of opportunities for mistakes to be made. The problem is that one little mistake can have a serious impact on your credit score. If you find any mistakes, be sure to report them to the agency right away. Send a copy of any documentation to support your claim. This is one of the "credit repair secrets" others will charge for.

3. Pay on time, every time. There are a lot of different things that go into your credit score, and some of them you can't do much about. For example, you can't change how long you have had credit for. But you can start making all of your payments on time. Doing this consistently for several months will start to raise your credit score. Now, this may not give you a perfect score, but every point in your favor is worth it.

4. Fight! Fight! Fight! You need to take your finances seriously. Once you have the right mindset everything else will get easier. There will be setbacks, there will be times when you will want to splurge, there will be days you want to give up, but you will get past them unscathed when you're fighting for your financial future.

Your credit score may be on the low side right now, but it doesn't have to stay that way. There is a catch to these credit repair secrets. Sorry, there always seems to be a catch, doesn't there? The catch is that you have to follow through on them. Just reading about them will accomplish nothing, in fact it could make things worse. What's next is up to you. All it takes to have the future you want doing anything to take that first step in the right direction.