Answer: Closing accounts won’t help your credit scores, and may hurt them. If you’re trying to improve your scores or plan to get a major loan in the next several months, leave them open.

If your scores are fine and you don’t expect to apply for a mortgage or car loan soon, then you certainly can close a few retail cards. But try to keep open your major credit cards, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express.

Answer: The first thing you need to do is opt out of your bank’s bounced-check protection program. You may think you need to borrow money this way to make ends meet, but as you’ve discovered, it’s driving you further into the hole.

Next, rethink your participation in the debt management program. It was honorable of you to try to avoid bankruptcy, but it’s pretty clear you can’t afford to continue with this program if doing so leaves you in default on your student loan obligations. Credit card debts can be erased in Bankruptcy Court; student loan debt can almost never be wiped out that way.

If you have federal student loans, you may be able to qualify for the income-based repayment program, which caps your payment at a reasonable amount and erases any remaining balance after 10 years in a public service job (such as teaching in the public school system). Otherwise, the balance is erased after 25 years of payments. If you have private loans, you have far fewer options for repayment, but wiping out the credit card debt would free up more money to pay these loans back. Talk to your lenders to see what options you may have.

Another factor to consider is how much you’re spending on housing. If you own a home, the mortgage and related home-owning costs may simply be too much for you on your current income. Getting rid of the house in a short sale, or even letting it go into foreclosure, may be a far better option than continuing to cling to a home you can’t afford.

Bankruptcy, short sales and foreclosures are all drastic options. But some financial problems are so great that a drastic solution is the only reasonable choice if you ever want to get back on your financial feet.

Answer: One of the many persistent myths about credit is that having too many cards is bad for your credit scores. In reality, the leading credit scoring formula, the FICO, doesn’t punish you for having “too much” available credit. You can, however, hurt your credit scores by closing accounts.

If you’re not going to be in the market for a new loan any time soon, you can certainly close a few retail cards if you no longer use them and don’t want the hassle of keeping track of those accounts. But you’ll probably want to keep open your major credit card accounts (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express) unless there’s a compelling reason to close them, such as an annual fee you don’t want to pay.

Both offer pretty sweet deals. The Venture card has a 2% rewards rate on all purchases, and you don’t have to deal with blackout dates or other typical redemption hassles. Instead, you book your flight or hotel room directly, and use your rewards points to pay for it. The $59 annual fee is waived the first year.

The Sapphire card is offering a 50,000-point signup bonus that can be worth up to $625 of free travel. You can earn a 2% rewards rate on travel and dining purchases and 1% everywhere else. Plus, you get an annual rewards bonus equal to 7% of the points you’ve earned for the year. The annual fee of $95 is waived for the first year.

A notable feature for travels: neither card charges foreign transaction fees, which typically add 3% to the cost of spending abroad (or ordering from foreign companies at home).

I still like my Starwood Amex card–mostly because we’ve been able to wrangle redemption rates of 4%+by using our points to book Hawaiian resort hotel rooms and sleeper-car accommodations on Amtrak. But we recently added a Venture card to our mix for those occasions when a merchant doesn’t accept American Express.

Remember, rewards cards only make sense for those who pay off their balances in full every month, and you need excellent credit scores to score these deals. Also, you shouldn’t apply for new accounts if you expect to get a major loan, such as a car loan or a mortgage refinance, in the next few months. Wait until that deal closes before you seek any more credit.

If you’re trying to pay off credit card balances, and don’t have the good scores needed to get low-rate balance transfer offers you find on NerdWallet and other sites, consider getting a three-year fixed-rate personal loan from a local credit union to help you pay off your debt. FindACreditUnion.com can help you if you’re not already a CU member.

If you’re hoping to improve your scores, check out my book “Your Credit Score,” which recently came out in its fourth edition.

Answer: Unless your credit scores are excellent (typically FICO credit scores of 740 or above), these days you probably shouldn’t waste your time trying to negotiate a lower rate with your current issuers.

People with great credit have some leverage, because they can easily transfer their balances to competitors offering low rates. People with only “decent” credit usually can’t qualify for those offers.

You may be able to get a better deal by transferring your balance to a three-year, fixed-rate personal loan. Check with your local credit union first, as these member-owned organizations often have better rates and terms.

Answer: Congratulations on your progress paying off your debt. Erasing your debt on those two cards is doubtless already helping your scores. You can continue to improve your numbers by using the cards lightly but regularly, paying the balances in full each month.

Credit scoring formulas want to see you actively, and responsibly, using credit. Shutting the cards in a drawer won’t demonstrate that you can do that. You’re also running the risk that a card issuer will shut down your account because of inactivity.

If you discover you can’t use the cards responsibly, however, then locking them in that drawer (or freezing them in ice) is better than running up credit card debt again.

Answer: It can take five years after a bankruptcy for your FICO credit scores to return to the 680 range, which is about where auto loan interest rates start to get more reasonable. People with FICOs in the 660 to 690 range got interest rates averaging about 7.5%, according to the MyFico.com site, compared with 11% and up for those with lower scores. It can take seven or more years to boost your scores above 720, which is where the truly low rates (4% and below) can be had.

To rehabilitate your scores as quickly as possible, first review your credit reports at http://www.annualcreditreport.com to make sure all the debts that were included in bankruptcy are listed that way. If you have any open credit card accounts, use them lightly but regularly and pay them off in full every month. “Lightly” means using less than 30% of your credit limits. If you don’t have a card, consider applying for a secured card, which gives you a credit limit equal to an amount you deposit with the issuing bank, typically $200 to $1,000. You can find secured card offers at several websites, including LowCards.com, CreditCards.com, CardRatings.com and NerdWallet.com.

After a year or so, consider adding an installment loan such as a personal loan or an auto loan to your credit mix. A credit union may give you a more reasonable rate than a traditional bank. Paying off that loan should help boost your scores.

Don’t close accounts or apply for a bunch of new accounts. Pay all your bills on time and don’t let disputes or medical bills wind up in collections.

There aren’t any quick fixes, so don’t waste your money on credit repair firms or other pitches that promise instant results. What will repair your score is using credit responsibly over time.

Answer: If your FICO scores are close to 800, they’re more than OK — they’re excellent. And once scores are that high, the reasons the credit bureaus give you for why they’re not higher are pretty much irrelevant. Even if you could fix the purported problem, it probably wouldn’t affect your numbers that much.

But you should consider adding another credit card once your refinance closes. A second card could serve as a backup if your primary card ever gets temporarily shut because of fraud. A second card also gives you somewhere to go if your issuer raises your rate, cuts your credit limit or starts imposing unreasonable fees. It’s not smart in today’s financial environment to be beholden to a single credit card issuer.

Answer: If you have good credit scores now, it could take up to three years to restore them after you’ve failed to pay a bill. The negative marks themselves will remain on your credit reports for seven years, but their effect on your scores diminishes over time if you make no other credit mistakes.

Clearly, the best solution is to pay at least the minimums on your cards until your windfall comes through and you can pay off the debt entirely. Going forward, you should avoid carrying credit card debt. The only smart way to use plastic is as a convenience, not as a way to live beyond your means.

If you’re not able to pay the minimums, you can talk to your issuers to see if they have a temporary hardship plan that will allow you to reduce the amount you pay. Ask about the hardship plans’ effect on your credit, though, since these arrangements also may hurt your scores, depending on how they’re reported to credit bureaus.

A few minutes later I got an email from American Express emblazoned “Fraud Protection Alert.” I called the toll free number and identified the attempted charges as legitimate. Then I called the main number to ask why the Girl Scouts was suddenly considered a risky operation.

The rep first tried to blame it on the fact that there were “multiple transactions,” but she had to back off when I pointed out there were only two, and that didn’t explain why the first charge was declined. When I asked her if there was a way to get American Express’ overly vigilant fraud protection software to back off a bit, she said no.

As I wrote in “Big Brother is helping you?“, these programs flag about 20 transactions for every one that’s truly bogus. It’s up to the card issuer to decide how and when to follow through. American Express has obviously set its bar pretty low, opting to inconvenience and possibly embarrass customers rather than risk a loss.

A surprising number of people tell me they appreciate these alerts and blocked transactions. They feel like the card issuers are looking out for them. But the card issuers are really only looking out for themselves, since customers aren’t on the hook for fraudulent transactions if they’re reported promptly.

Issuers certainly have a right to try to protect themselves, and reducing fraud theoretically reduces costs for everyone. But they should find a way to do so without needlessly annoying their customers. Otherwise, we’ll take our business elsewhere. As I did. The charge using my Visa went right through.