How Bad Credit Can Affect You in the Workplace

Bad credit can limit your ability to get a loan or score a low-interest rate on a credit card, but that's not all it can do. It can also rear its ugly head in the workplace, making it harder for you to do your job or even -- in a frustrating catch-22 -- keep you from getting a job that could help you break your cycle of debt and poor credit.

Teresa Turner, right, a former Realtor in California whose livelihood was decimated when the real estate market crashed, knows this firsthand. When her business started to go south in early 2008, she began relying on credit cards, confident she could ride out a slow patch. Today, she's considering filing for bankruptcy, and she suspects her problem landing a new job is directly related to the hit her formerly good credit has taken in the interim.