financial literacy weist helps me understand how to manage my finances and make me more competitive for good loans. host: stewart pratt is the president and c.e.o. of the consumer data industry association. you testified about this issue last week. we're talking about credit reports and the economy, calling in with your questions now. what are some credit score killers? guest: if you've missed a payment. so if you're not paying your bills on time there's no doubt that's going to have some effect on your score. one 30-day late payment is probably not going to be nearly as severe as going to 60, going to 90 or missing payments on a range of your different loans. so that's one. and that's i think very intuitive. paying your bills is always a good thing to do. if you overuse credit, so if i have a credit limit of $10,000 but i maintain a balance of $9,000, i've used up 90% of that credit limit. generally credit scores score that adversely as well because it looks like you're bumping up the very maximums of what you've been allowed to have access to. so those are some of the issues that you