Establish the right kind of accounts.

Overall I encourage people to rebuild their credit after bankruptcy by establishing these types of accounts:

1. Checking and savings accounts at a bank or credit union
2. A few secured bank cards
3. One or two retail credit cards (just don't go crazy)
4. A few secured bank loans.
5. A car financed through a bank, credit union, or captive lender (that reports to all three national credit reporting agencies).
6. A home mortgage.
7. A refinanced mortgage.
8. A home equity loan (not a home equity line of credit).
9. Real estate investment: Your current home becomes your first investment property and you shop for a new home.

Obviously this doesn't happen all at once. And the order changes depending on what you need. This is pretty much the order in which we did things after our bankruptcy.

Notice I don't have any finance company or Crapital One accounts listed above. Sometimes knowing what accounts to avoid is as important as knowing which accounts to establish.

You'll also notice I don't have a personal loan listed above. I spent too much time looking for loans after I went bankrupt. I figured if I could just get a big enough loan, I'd pay off all my debts. Of course, it didn't occur to me that I'd still need to pay off the loan. Duh!

It's like a disease. (Hi, I'm Stephen, and I'm a loanaholic.)

Stephen Snyder is the founder of the After Bankruptcy Foundation a non-profit organization that provides free bankruptcy information and recovery steps. Stephen also writes a free weekly newsletter on bankruptcy recovery.