I tackle these and other credit questions in this video produced by my new publisher, Hudson Street Press. If you’ve got a couple minutes, take a look.

Answer: An installment loan such as a car loan can indeed improve your credit scores as long as you make the payments on time and don’t overextend yourself. Clearly, though, this purchase will have to wait until you’re back home, since any credit you get abroad won’t help your credit scores in the U.S.

While you’re waiting for your scores to improve, you can build up your savings — real estate investors need a fat cushion to cover down payments, repairs, maintenance and vacancies — and learn more about the skills you’ll need to be a successful investor. You don’t need to waste your money on expensive seminars, since everything you need to know is available in bookstores and libraries. One book to get you started is “Real Estate Investing for Dummies” by Eric Tyson and Robert S. Griswold.

Answer: Of course they would. What the former mortgage pro may have been referring to is a credit freeze, which allows you to block potential future lenders from seeing your credit report.

Credit freezes are an important tool for victims of identity theft or those at high risk of having their identities stolen. With the freeze in place, a lender processing the application of the identity thief won’t be able to access your report and will almost certainly refuse to open a new account for the criminal.

If you need credit, you will have to unfreeze your report to allow a lender to see your data. Credit freezes are available at each of the three major credit bureaus that collect your credit information, although there are typically fees involved for freezing and unfreezing your files.

A credit freeze does not prevent your current lenders from reviewing your credit reports or adding new information to them. The best way to prevent negative information is to pay your bills on time, borrow only what you can afford to repay and prevent disputes from going to collections.

Answer: If you were asked for any money, even if it was framed as a “donation,” you weren’t at the right site. Neither were you at the correct site if you were told you could get access to your credit report in a couple of days, rather than instantly. These lookalike sites are geared to sign you up for expensive and usually unnecessary credit monitoring. They’re supposed to have a banner explaining they’re not the site that offers federally mandated free credit reports, but some are ignoring the rules.

The one and only site to get your free credit reports is http://www.annualcreditreport.com. If you were misled or deceived by any other site, please make a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission at http://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov.

Answer: It’s understandable that you don’t want to tap your savings or investments, since it’s difficult to build up those funds. But it really makes no sense to carry high-interest debt when the returns you’re getting on these other accounts are probably much lower.

Talk to your tax pro about the implications of selling some or all of your non-retirement investments, though. If your investments have gained substantially in value, you’ll want to factor in the tax bill or consider selling some of your money-losers instead.

Once the credit cards are paid off, some money that used to go to those payments will be freed up for other goals.

Your priority needs to be saving for retirement. Once you’re on track there, you probably should focus on rebuilding your emergency fund to equal at least three and preferably six months’ worth of expenses. You may not be able to accomplish that before your second child arrives, though, so consider opening a home equity line of credit as a proxy for a larger emergency fund. Leave the line of credit open and unused, however, because racking up a balance would defeat the purpose.

Saving for college is a worthy goal, although it shouldn’t take priority over retirement, paying off toxic debt or having an emergency fund. You may not be able to save enough to pay the whole bill, but you can shoot for saving one-third or half the expected cost, and your child can use federal student loans for the rest. SavingForCollege.com has a calculator to help fine-tune your plan. Even if you can’t save as much as you’d like, you should save something. Even $25 a month over time will help reduce the amount your child needs to borrow.

Home improvements should be last on your list of priorities, and you should try to pay for those with cash. They are not an investment in your home — although they may improve the value somewhat, you’ll typically get back less than 70% of what you spend.

Answer: The good news is that many countries (although obviously not all) offer high-qualify healthcare that’s less expensive than in the U.S. Still, it’s smart to have insurance coverage.

Kathleen Peddicord, author of “How to Retire Overseas,” says you typically have two options: in-country and international policies. In-country policies tend to be less expensive (some cost as little as $100 a month) but may be tough to qualify for if you’re in your 60s or older. International policies are more expensive but you can qualify as a new client if you’re younger than 75. Furthermore, international policies will cover you if you move from country to country; an in-country policy won’t.

As you research your retirement destination, contact expatriates who live there to ask about their health insurance coverage, as well as about other details of their lives. You can start with Peddicord’s site, LiveandInvestOverseas.com, but also check out International Living (internationalliving.com and find country-specific sites by typing the name of the country and the word “expat” into an Internet search engine.

So I stepped on the accelerator instead. I drove the car at some speed into a concrete wall, and that was the end of my errand (and the station wagon).

Now, I’m not a stupid person. One of the ways I paid for that college was a National Merit scholarship. But deciding to step on the accelerator when the brake failed was a stupid act.

Some of you aren’t happy with my calling the act of carrying a credit card balance stupid. But in most cases, that’s exactly what it is. Otherwise smart people can do really stupid things with money, and that’s just one of them.

Some of the others, in case you’re interested, include:

• Not contributing to a retirement fund
• Not contributing when there’s a company match (stupid squared)
• Signing up for loans you can’t afford
• Co-signing loans for anyone, unless you’re making the payments
• Taking out refund anticipation loans
• Using a payday lender
• Rolling your debt from your last car loan into your next car loan

You can focus on your reasons/justifications/excuses for doing these things, or you can acknowledge, “Yup, that was dumb”–which could be the first step toward changing your behavior and actually getting smart about money.

One of my siblings has suggested that she stop paying the credit cards altogether and let the debts go to collection. Another has suggested bankruptcy, but we’re uncertain how that would affect her retirement account. Either scenario would affect her credit scores, which would then be a consideration for future employment and could raise her auto insurance rates. Any suggestions?

Answer: If your mother simply stops paying her credit card bills, the issuers or subsequent collectors could sue her over the debt. Because there’s little hope of her being able to pay these bills — her unemployment benefits will end someday, and her prospects of finding another job are probably slim — bankruptcy may be the best of bad options. A Chapter 7 liquidation filing would protect her from creditors, erase the debt and allow her to get a fresh start. Her retirement fund would be safe; whether her small savings account or car would be at risk in a bankruptcy filing depends on state law.

Yes, her credit scores would certainly suffer, and in most states (although not California) that can lead to higher insurance rates. But at this point, her credit scores are probably the least of her worries.

Another option is that the siblings could pitch in to pay off or settle these debts. Although paying off the cards in full would preserve her credit, that may not be the best option. She used these cards to live beyond her means in good times, so she would be tempted to run up more big balances as money gets tighter. If you settle the debt for less than what she owes, the accounts would be closed and her credit would be trashed, so she would have trouble accumulating new debt — at least for a while.

But you may well decide that a better use of your money, if you have any to spare, is to help support her in the future.

It might help to know your mother isn’t alone in her troubles. A Consumer Bankruptcy Project study found the rate of bankruptcy filings more than doubled from 1991 to 2007 for people 65 to 74. For people 75 to 83, the bankruptcy filing rate rose 433%.

Answer: If you’re self-employed, you can contribute 25% of your earned income or $49,000 — whichever is less — to a SEP for 2010. Earned income is defined as your gross income from your business minus allowable business deductions, including contributions to the SEP. (You’re considered self-employed if you work for yourself and your business is not incorporated. Otherwise, you would need to follow somewhat different rules to determine compensation.)

A SEP is one of the easiest ways for the self-employed to save for retirement, because you don’t have to commit to a certain funding level and you don’t have the potentially expensive reporting or actuarial requirements that often come with other plans. You should read IRS Publication 560, Retirement Plans for Small Business, and talk to a tax pro to make sure you get the details right.

But some folks are posing questions that I’m in no position to answer. I’m not, after all, an expert on expat living–I’m happily ensconced in California, where I plan to stay. So I can’t tell you how efficient the bus system is in Thailand or how to find a housekeeper in Ecuador. And I’m sure not a real estate agent, even though one woman wanted me to send her pictures of apartments in Cuenca so she could see if they were up to her standards.

There are ways to find answers to your questions, of course. There are many Web sites devoted to expatriate living, both in general and in specific countries. Two places to start are LiveandInvestOverseas.com and International Living. To find country-specific communities, type the country name and the word “expat” into a search engine.

You may need to do a lot of searching, poking around, reading and asking questions. If you can’t do that, or you’re easily frustrated when you don’t get immediate results, expat life is probably not for you. In the U.S. we’re used to convenience–what we want, when we want it. That may not be as true in other countries, even developed ones. (My friends from England frequently comment about how easy life is here, compared to home; the U.S. in general is set up to serve the consumer–toll-free customer service lines being the great exception.)

As Kathleen Peddicord puts it in her book, “How to Retire Overseas,” “Making a success of a new life overseas requires energy, commitment and a positive attitude.” I’d add that it also requires curiosity, flexibility and a certain level of tolerance for frustration. If you haven’t got the chops, you’re probably better off staying home.