Annual Credit Report

If you haven't already, you should take advantage of the free annual credit report you are eligible to get each year.  Make sure you get it at annualcreditreport.com which is the official site.  While you don't get to see your FICO score, you do get to look through all the accounts you have currently open.  The accounts will show the status for each month it has been opened.  Hopefully, you will only see green OKs which means that each month you either fully paid off your account or you didn't draw a balance.  Yellow and red symbols usually indicate late payments and will have a negative impact on your credit score.  If you see an unfamiliar credit card or loan taken out under your name, you may be the victim of identity fraud.

Paying Off Your Debt

You always want to pay off your debt.  Any debt at all usually is detrimental to your financial position (unless it is a friendly loan of a few dollars).  This is usually because loans always have very high interest rates, at least higher than the interest you can earn from a bank.  The main reason is because banks and other lenders take larger risks lending to individuals and demand a higher rate of return whereas banks offer FDIC secured accounts and can offer lower rates.