You don’t really need credit cards…daveramsey.com has all of the information you will need.

I’m not knocking the 2 posters before me, but they really didn’t answer your question. And to answer your question, yes, a secured credit card would DEFINITELY help your situation. You can use the secured card for 2 things. to establish new credit, and also start up an emergency fund from the deposit that you can use later on to lighten the burden on your credit cards. The best way to manage the card is to make small purchases ($20/max) that you can easily pay off every month. This way, you show activity that’s building credit WITHOUT going into debt. Only spend what you can afford to pay, simple as that.

As far as the credit cards that are going to expire from your report, I’ll take it that it’s close to 7½ years, then they’ll fall off. In this case, I wouldn’t bother, unless you’re wanting to really spend the money. And even then if you plan on doing that, I would negotiate a “pay to delete”, which is a payment in exchange for removing it from the report. Since the accounts are a lot older and will stop reporting soon, you have a good chance to pay much less in exchange for removing them. I posted some links that explain this more in detail if you really want to pursue clearing them up sooner, if not just wait it out and let it take its course.