Dear Penny,

I am a housewife who does not work outside of my home. The only income I have on my own is my social security, which is not much. My husband and I have had bad credit in the past. I want to establish credit in my name. Is there a way I can do this?

-K.

Dear K.,

First, let’s separate your credit history from that of your husband. You may have had joint accounts in the past and if the payments were past due, your credit reports and scores would have been tarnished. But your credit reports, which are used to calculate your credit scores, are yours.

While a spouse can certainly help or hinder your efforts to build credit, ultimately the only way to build credit is on your own behalf. Unless you have a co-signer or apply for a card or loan in both of your names, only your history will be taken into account if you apply for credit.

It’s important to think about your goals here. If you’re trying to rebuild your credit in order to get mortgage or car loan approval on your own, it will likely be difficult without work. But if your goal is just to rebuild your credit, I think you can do it gradually.

The easiest way to build credit is to use a credit card. You don’t need a job to get one. What you need is income. Your Social Security benefits may not be important, but they still matter. If you have a joint bank account with your husband that his paycheck is deposited into or he regularly deposits money in your account, you can also count that money as income.

Make a request for secure credit cardWhether you’re rebuilding your credit or starting from scratch, is always a good thing. You will put down a deposit – typically $ 200 to $ 500 – and use it as a line of credit. In these tough times, I understand that not everyone can save several hundred dollars for a deposit. If that deposit got you behind on your bills, you can’t afford to worry about your credit right now. Focus on building an emergency fund before you apply.

If you can afford the deposit, Capital One and Discover usually have good secure card options. (No, no one paid me to say that.) Because you are making that deposit, the credit and income limits are much lower. Some cards allow you to automatically switch to a regular card after you have made a certain number of payments on time.

Look for a card with the lowest annual fee and APR possible. You will of course want both to be as low as possible. But I hope you pay the balance every month so that the APR doesn’t matter to you. Also make sure that the card issuer reports to the three bureaus so that you can establish a credit history.

The most important thing you can do is just pay the bill on time every month. Payment history is the most important credit factor, determining 35 percent of your score.

You also need to be careful about how much you charge. Your credit utilization rate, or the percentage of open credit you use, is 30% of your score. I would recommend making a small purchase each month that you would make, card or no card, that costs no more than 10 percent of the card limit. Then pay it off in full each month.

If you do everything right, your credit could start improving in about six months. Any negative information on your reports, like late payments or accounts that were collected, will stay there for seven years, but the damage will start to wear off after two years.

The key to fixing bad credit is making sure that you have all the underlying issues addressed as well. Some people find themselves with credit problems because of a crisis that was out of their control. But if overspending was a problem in the past, make sure you have a plan to pay off every purchase you make each month. Living without credit, as you are doing now, is difficult. But it forces you to limit your spending to what you bring back. Make sure you don’t change your spending once you have better access to credit.

One thing you don’t say is if your husband wants to fix his credit too. Although your credit reports are separate, it will be much easier if you both share this goal. It is essential that you budget together and hold each other accountable. Encourage your husband to apply for a secured credit card as well. All the discipline in the world on your part won’t go far if you’re not in the same boat.

Robin Hartill is a Certified Financial Planner and Editor-in-Chief at The Penny Hoarder. Send your sensitive money questions to AskPenny@thepennyhoarder.com.