You may find these links helpful:

• Leaving a Job (resigning, quitting, fired, laid off, etc.)
• Job Loss Megathread: unemployment resources, state-specific information, and help

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You rebuild credit by paying your debts on time. That’s the biggest part, and it makes sense because the score is about how safe you are to lend to. Lenders want to get paid back.

Paying off your credit cards frees you from crippling interest on debt. That doesn’t help your credit directly, but it’s important to do. But also speak to your loan lenders and make sure to do what you can to get back into their good graces. Being behind and then catching up with a payment plan is better than debt sent to collections.

Credit score is also a weird fixation. Unless you plan to buy a house or a car or need a new home lease and have an obnoxious landlord, it really has no effect on your life. If you have a newish cad, a solid place to live, and no plans for the next seven years, your credit score basically doesn’t matter and will fix itself with time and reasonably good financial behavior.

I’d worry about rebuilding your emergency fund after getting current so you wouldn’t be put in such a predicament should anything like this happens again.

Why do you care about a higher credit score? I’ve had an 850 score. The promised dancers, marching band, ponies, and magicians didn’t show up. And I waited all day.

You should be less concerned about your credit score and more concerned about preventing a reoccurrence of problems that resulted from going into debt when you lost your job. You didn’t have a sufficient emergency fund. It took you 6 months to replace your income in an economy with low unemployment rates.

After you pay off your debts, you should focus on a 12 month emergency fund.

Pay all your credit card balances in full and your score will recover over time.

A credit score in the low 500s definitely needs to be addressed. It's not going to fix itself overnight and it's not worth obsessing over in the short term for that reason but it's a real problem with consequences that OP is justified in being worried about.

> A credit score in the low 500s definitely needs to be addressed. It's not going to fix itself overnight

Where did I say it would fix itself over night?

Don’t put words in my mouth that I didn’t say.

I didn't quote you, those are my words.

Thank you both for your inputs, its helping me put things into perspective