<prompt> Human: Old throwaway because I know people who would want me to contribute to their personal projects and I dont want them to know I have the money.I recently came into quite a bit of money 75k and would like to use it to pay off my student loan debt 66k. However, Im not sure whether it would be better for me to pay it off right away and pay less or pay it off over a few years to build up credit. Im 21 and due to some stupid decisions I made a few years ago, I have incredibly poor credit and Id very much like to correct that. Would it be better to pay it all off now and build up credit some other way or pay it off over time in addition to building credit in other ways.I personally dont need the money for any other expenses. Im doing pretty well for myself right now.Assistant: Before you pay off the loan in full which I am 100 for, dont make the monthly payments over time, find out if you will owe taxes on the money first and set aside that amount so you dont have an ugly surprise come April 15th.Human: I agree with this person. There are less expensive ways to build credit. Theres a sweet spot between number of open accounts, age of accounts, and available credit. If you already have credit cards, do not close them. Its beneficial to have between 3-6. However, it will hurt your account age average to open a few at one time. If you have none, get a few all at once and keep the balance low enough to pay off every month. Like a tank of gas on each, monthly.If you have poor credit, you will have to get secured accounts. Prepaid just open them up and never use them, or keep them for emergencies. Trust me, your credit will improve rapidly as time goes by. We all make poor decisions in our early twenties and wind up correcting them later on. I went from mid 500s to high 700s in a matter of a couple years. Also, if your credit mistakes were with your student loan, they may have a credit forgiveness plan. Look into that. You can ask whatever debtors to remove the discrepancy from your report in exchange for the balance to be paid off. It works SOMETIMES, but not often. Just make sure you get the open ones paid off. It will be important when you go to buy a house. One last thing you should know... The credit monitoring sites are a good tool to use to get a general idea of how your credit looks. However, its not what banks use to determine your score. They have a different algorithm that usually puts you a bit lower than the big sites show you. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have more questions about rebuilding your credit. I wish someone had given me advice when I was 21. Assistant: If you have none, get a few all at once and keep the balance low enough to pay off every month. Like a tank of gas on each, monthly. If you have poor credit, you will have to get secured accounts.Yes, I already have three secured cards my credit problems were with opening up a few at once, using them up in a month, losing my job and not making any payments. Ive since paid those off but they did their damage. So far, Ive been maxing them out and paying them off each month. Would it be better to do what you said and only pay a little? Or does it not make a difference?  <response>: Never pay interest if you can help it. You do not need to pay credit card interest to build credit. Also, it would be much better if you didnt max them out and only used 30 or less of the available credit. Pay the entire outstanding balance on your credit card every month, or heck, if the bank lets you, make a payment every time the balance hits 30 of the max multiple payments per month. 