Oprah’s Best Life webinar featuring personal finance guru Suze Orman will be taking questions from viewers about money matters, including credit management and tips for making over your FICO credit score.

The webinar will be live on Thursday, January 15 at 8 p.m. CST. If you are interested in joining, you can register here: http://lybl.oprah.com/lybl.html (check the money box).

Since many women manage the finances in their household, understanding the FICO score is one way women can empower themselves and secure their financial future. In honor of Oprah’s yearly list of her favorite things, here are some of “FICO’s Favorite Things” – the tips that all consumers can use to build and improve their FICO scores and important facts to know about your score, especially during economic uncertainty:

• Keep credit card balances low. If your credit card balances are nearing their credit limits, budget your finances to make debt reduction a top priority. Your indebtedness is the second most important factor for FICO® scores.

• Open new credit cards or loans only when necessary. Opening new credit accounts may cause your score to decrease, so be cautious about taking on new debt. This includes thinking twice before opening a retail store card just to get an extra 10 percent off your current purchase.

• Unemployment status is NOT factored into the FICO score – Losing one’s job won’t by itself affect a person’s credit rating. However, increasing one’s outstanding debt (by relying on cards until a new job can be found) or missing payments will likely start dragging that rating down.

Please join us tonight and jump start your finances by getting great advice and insight from Suze Orman!