<prompt> Human: I recently paid off massive student loans through a windfall I received which was conditioned on using it to pay off the loans. Before I paid them off, I was living on the edge, spending most of my income on the monthly payments and making minimum payments on a large 20,000 credit card debt. Needless to say, I would sometimes miss payments and my credit score wasnt very good.Now that I dont have to make the monthly loan payments, Im focusing on paying off the credit card debt, making 2-3x the minimum payment each month. The problem is since Ive started doing this my credit score has dropped about 25 points in three months. It was already pretty bad to begin with and I dont know if I can afford to have it dropping much more. I might be needing to move soon and Ive had landlords tell me they wont consider anyone below a 600 which I just dipped below. Not to mention if I ever need a car loan or, god forbid, a mortgage. My only other debt is a small leftover student loan that Im making 2x the minimum monthly payment on.What are my options right now? Do I have to just ride this out until the card is paid off?  <response>: First, be proud of yourself that you are getting out of debt. You are taking the steps and in the long run you will be much better off for it. It looks like this is some weird short lived dip. If you are paying off your debt, not adding more, and keeping your accounts open you should be fine. The big note there is not closing accounts once you have paid them off. If multiple open accounts are too much to bear, then keep open your oldest accounts and your accounts with the best history of payment. The main action that will rise your credit score is paying off your debt and not adding to it. Make sure you do that. Stay the course, this is a short term hiccup. In the long run, your score will go up. 