Yes.  You don’t have to have a credit card to have bad credit. If you have or have had a student loan, auto loan or mortgage that you have been late making payments or defaulted on, then your credit score would have been negatively affected.  Likewise if you have had a credit card in the past that you managed irresponsibly then there could be damage on your credit report for up to seven years from the date that any of your old accounts were opened.  Additionally, if you have any accounts in collections (e.g. medical or utility bills), your credit would have suffered.  Lastly, if you have declared bankruptcy in the last 10 years, then your credit is probably pretty bad.

If none of these things apply for you and your are still unable to get a loan, then you probably have no credit, in which case you may want to apply for a secured credit card.  With a secured credit card, a deposit starting at $200, acts as collateral against your loan, and you can start building/improving your credit history with very little risk to you or your lender.

Your new credit card will show up on your credit report roughly a month after you receive the card in the mail.  This first record of your new account on your credit report will mark the end of your first billing cycle.  Each credit card company reports according to its own schedule, therefore there is no set industry standard date for reporting.  Usually, most credit card companies report to the credit bureaus within a couple days of the close of your billing cycle, which falls roughly on the same date every month.  For example, if your billing cycle ended on the 15th of each month, your credit card issuer might report to the bureaus on the 16th or the 17th of each month.  Given that you haven’t received your first statement, you can call your new credit card issuer to find out when your billing cycle begins and ends.

When you fill out a credit card application the credit card issuer will check all three major credit bureaus – TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.  Your credit report should be very similar or the exactly the same across all three bureaus.  If it is not, you may want to check for inaccuracies.

Before deciding to approve or deny your application any credit card company will look very closely at the timeliness of your payments across all of your revolving accounts, the length of your relationships with your lenders and the percentage of the credit that’s been extended to you that you are using at the time of application.

No.  It won’t ruin your credit, and unless you are 30 days or more late, the late payment will not even show up on your credit report.  That being said, this is a very bad habit to get into, so make sure you don’t do it again.  Even if you are just one day late, your credit card company will assess a late fee on your account.  If you are more than 30 days late, your credit card company will report you to the credit bureaus and this one late payment will stay on your credit report for seven years, even though it will only have a marginal impact on your actual credit score after the first couple of years.  The bottom line is that you should everything you can to pay your credit card bill on time EVERY time.

No.  Making your credit card payments by the due date is what will affect your credit score.  There are no benefits associated with making early payments.  However, making your payment well before the due date on your credit card statement is a great habit to practice.  Waiting until the last minute to make your payment can sometimes cause it to be marked as late.  This can be attributed to the time it takes to process your payment as well as other factors.
The three things that most impact your credit score and that are most important to keep in mind are timeliness of your payments, the length of your relationships with your lenders and the percentage of the credit that’s been extended to you that you are using at any given time.

No, not at all.  Debit cards, sometimes referred to as bank cards, are as widely accepted as credit cards, and transactionally, they work the same way.  However, a debit card is linked to your personal bank account, and as soon as you make a purchase with a debit card the money is immediately withdrawn from the account associated with it.  Because of this, there is no bill at the end of the month for the purchases made with a debit card – just an itemized statement.  Debit cards were created for convenience, but they have no more an effect on your credit than would writing a check.

Alternatively, when you make a purchase with a credit card, you are simply lowering your amount of available credit, and you will receive a bill at the end of the month for which you are responsible.

There is no standard number that your credit score will go up each month if you have a secured credit card or line of credit of any other kind.  There are a wide number of factors that determine your credit score and these factors are all based on your behavior and not on what type of or how many credit cards your have.  Plus your credit score is calculated based on your overall credit history, not just the activity on one account.
A secured credit card works just like any other credit card, expect for the deposit that’s required to open the account.  If you are opening a secured card account because you have no credit or bad credit, then you should see an improvement in your credit score, provided that you manage your secured account responsibly by paying your bill on time each month and being careful not to go over your credit limit.
Following these rules will lead to an improvement in your credit score.  However, if you mismanage a secured credit card account by going over the limit and/or not paying your bills on time, then your credit score will drop, just as it would if you did this with a traditional credit card.

If you don’t pay your credit card bill for a particular month, you become delinquent on your account, and will be assessed a late fee, even if you are just one day late.  If you miss a second payment (which will put you at 30 days delinquent), you be assessed another late fee.  Additionally, at this point your credit card issuer will report you as being late to the three major credit bureaus, which will begin to negatively impact your credit score and affect your ability to get approved for other credit cards and/or loans.  After your late status is initially reported, your credit card issuer will continue to report your delinquency to the credit bureaus, once a month, until you bring your account back to current.

Potential lenders do not necessarily “track your spending” as they evaluate your credit worthiness.  The three things that are most important to any creditor are the timeliness of your payments, the length of your credit history and the way you use the credit that is available to you.
If you don’t carry a balance on your credit cards for an extended period of time your accounts are still reported to the credit bureaus as being “in good standing” every month.  Plus no balance means no bill, so there is no need to worry about making your payments on time.  Lastly, zero balances on your credit card accounts are a good thing for your debt to credit line ratio, which is the sum of the total amount of debt that you have measured against the sum of your available credit across all of your credit card accounts.  The debt to credit line ratio is one of the factors that potential lenders look at plus one of the factors that determines your credit score.

Whether you use your credit card each month and then pay your balance in full or choose not to use it at all, the account associated with this card will be reported to the credit bureaus as being current and in good standing.   The first approach will teach you how to manage credit responsibly but requires more discipline than does not using your credit card at all.   The difference between these two approaches as they affect your credit score is marginal so do what’s best for you.