Dave reads an article from USA Today about declining consumer credit scores during the recession and its impact on consumers. Dave discusses the freedom of having financial security in the midst of a recession and the unimportance of a credit score when you have cash to pay for stuff.

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Question: Caleb has had credit problems in the past, but has tried to clean them up. He wants to buy a house and wonders how he can improve his credit score.

Dave Ramsey's advice: Pull a copy of your credit score and make sure you have no outstanding bad debt or unpaid debt. The second thing that could cause your score to be bad is past debts that have been paid but are still on there. Remember, you don't have to have a credit score to get a house. You have to have cleaned up your bad debts, but if you find a mortgage company that does manual underwriting and can verify that you've paid your bills on time, then you qualify for a premium mortgage. You don't want to spend your life building your FICO score, because it's just an "I love debt" score.

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Amy asks if closing out her credit card will affect her credit score. Dave says yes, but that's not such a bad thing. Then he rants about how much (or how little) your credit score means.

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