I buckled down, borrowed the up front money from family, and paid these off all in one day. (the total amount was approximately $2,000), and made sure everything that wasn’t paid off was at least current.

My two lowest scores increased by about 60 points EACH in a mere 3 weeks after this. I’ve been working with prospective employers who do require credit and/or background checks, and found that if everything is current, most don’t care much about how bad it had gotten, which means if you fix the problems NOW, many employers will give you the benefit of the doubt.