<prompt> Human: 37 male, at the same place for 8 years next month!Sooo... I went through a bad divorce about 7 years ago. Seriously. Bad. Got hit with ridiculous alimony in addition to child support and being hit with all the bills. At one point, almost crying, I stood in front of the judge as they raised the alimony and told them I wouldnt even be able to afford my house payment or my bills. I got a very nice I dont care what you have to do. in return. Seriously. Ex teamed up with her sister, drummed up a fake debt with her sister 50,000 and hit me with that, too.Well, filed for bankruptcy some time after that and got it all wiped out. Also, my credit cards were killed off along the way earlier than the bankruptcy. Eventually had to vacate the house and stop making payment since I couldnt afford it also before the bankruptcy but it was still too much for too little - way upside down on it. Other crap happened along that hurt financially as well. Not going to lie. There were some pretty rough crappy years.Anyway! I actually have a bit of money in my account now! Im also putting a tiny bit of money every month automatically transferred through my credit union into a savings account for me and one for each of my two kids. Im not putting in a lot but its steady and Im going to keep doing it for my kids so that when theyre older, I can help them with something.Ive been able to buy a few little luxury things for myself over the past year, even! Ill say this - having had no money and no credit card for a long time has made me pretty good on being fairly frugal and making sure that if Im buying something a little pricey that its something Ive wanted and that its going to last for years.I was able to pay off the little that was left on my car, the loan Id taken on my 401k to foolishly try to pay some debts during the divorce will be paid off in December, I got my insurance down and Ive made other little tweaks to monthly payments. Oh! And I got a credit card! Its nothing special but I use it occasionally to buy groceries. And I have it set up on auto-pay so it just automatically gets paid off. I started with a 1000 limit and its already raised to 6500.Because of the bankruptcy, I have no debts. And because I had to live through that crap, Im good at buying within my limits. Not the best at budgeting always but pretty good.The future - I was thinking of saving up with the ultimate goal of buying a house in 4 years. Just putting away money for that goal but also as an emergency fund if it needs it. Id considered a two week vacation trip to Europe in a year or two but... well... as much as an insane blast as thatd be, Im leaning more towards just saving what I can. I think that I can maybe save 10,000 per year? Maybe 8,000? I need to increase my 401k contributions next year Im putting in just whats being matched so I dont know how thatll affect things.Are there any little things I should be doing to help my credit rebuild? Should I just occasionally shift any extra money from my checking account to my savings account and just keep it there for when its needed or, if I reach my goal, to use it for the house down payment and all that other things included in there?I wish Id been on reddit way back when because I definitely couldve used the wisdom from rpersonalfinance in the past. But, Im here now! Yay!  <response>: I wouldnt focus too much on repairing credit. I would first focus on repairing your financial life, which, to me, would mean: 1. Building up a savings account to hold at least 3 months of regular expenses - this will be your emergency fund2. Up the retirement savings to an amount that will make it possible for you to retire at age 65 or so. Knowing what amount is necessary for that wont be the easiest calculation. But a two step approach could be: multiply the amount of money that you think youll need at that age by 25 to understand how much money youll need. Then, use a compound interest calculator assume a 4 annual return this helps to combat inflation, plus its a bit pessimistic, which is better than being too optimistic and see how much you need to put in every year to get to the desired total amount 29 years from now.Getting an emergency fund up and running, and getting on a trajectory that allows you to retire at an age where you may still have some stamina left to enjoy life, are more important goals than a trip to Europe or a house. I would focus on these two things first, and start saving for wants only when the emergency fund is filled up and the contributions to the retirement account are on track. 