If you want to improve your credit score to buy a house or start a business,  you can't afford to make costly mistakes. Some things people say help your credit score actually hurt it and some of these mistakes are hard to come back from.

Filing Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is not a credit repair solution. In fact, your credit score could decline after you file bankruptcy, especially if you have a good credit score before you file bankruptcy. After you've finished the bankruptcy process, you'll have to work to rebuild your credit and it's often hard to get credit after bankruptcy. If you're considering bankruptcy to deal with your debt, that's one thing. However, don't use it to repair your credit.

Carrying a Credit Card Balance

You don't have to carry a credit card balance to repair your credit score. In fact, it's better that you pay off your credit card balance every month.  That way, you keep your credit utilization at 0%, you never become overloaded with debt, and you don't have to miss payments because you can't afford them.

Seeing a Credit Counselor

Credit counseling is another debt solution that doesn't necessarily help your credit score. While credit counseling agencies do send payments to your creditors every month, you have to first send timely payment to your credit counselor. If your payment is late to them, then their payment is late to your credit card issuer.

Closing a Credit Card

Very rarely does closing a credit card help your credit score and often, the closed account can hurt your credit score. Even if the account has a past due balance, closing it doesn't remove any type of delinquent status associated with your account. If you close your account with a past due balance, the balance will still be past due and how you have an increased credit utilization because there's no credit limit reported for that balance.

Little Bitty Credit Limits

Getting approved for a credit card with a $300 or $500 credit limit probably won't do much to help your credit score, especially if you're trying to balance out high credit utilization. But, these accounts can help you in the long run if you make timely payments on them every month without fail. Eventually, the credit card issuer may increase your credit limit. If not, you could qualify for a credit card that has a much higher credit limit.

Your Age

Being older isn't a guarantee that you'll have a great credit score. Older people face credit problems just as younger people do. It's true that having a long credit age helps your credit score, but that factor is just 15% of a person's total credit score. An old person who's been late on their payments and has charged high balances won't be helped by their age of credit.

If you're worried about making a mistake in improving your credit score, hiring a credit repair service is an option. Make sure you deal with an experienced, reputable credit repair agency with a history of positive results for their customers.