Category: Credit

One of the warnings that personal finance gurus often give is “be very careful with your use of credit cards”! I’ve said it myself and the reason why is that so many of us are just so damned cavalier when it comes to credit card spending. We lack self control, overuse our credit cards, fail to track our spending, buy impulsively, and either can’t or won’t be able to pay for that overspending. When all of that occurs, it causes a spiral into high interest payments, growing debt, damaged credit ratings, and eventually a possible financial disaster! Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

But, hold on a second, please. To be fair (and smart), credit cards are not evil in concept. In fact, credit cards can really rock and let me tell you exactly why! Continue reading

For today’s guest post on credit repair, please welcome CFA and fellow blogger Steven Millstein.

Putting good credit after bad is the best way to improve a credit rating over the long term. The fundamentals of putting good credit after bad include paying your bills on time and limiting the amount of credit that you rely on. However, there are other, lesser-known ways to practice effective credit repair. To help you build a stronger credit rating which makes it easier to access affordable credit when you need it, I would like to share 5 practical credit repair tips. Use one, a few or all of them in order to get the type of credit rating that lenders want to see!

1. Dispute Negative Credit Report Entries

If you’ve been getting hassled by a collection agency and you think that the collection agency may have inaccurate information about your debt, you should take action. Under the stipulations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), it’s your right to dispute a credit entry which is incorrect. In order to find out exactly why a collection agency is bothering you and harming your credit score, you should send the collection agency a letter. Ask the collection agency to provide you with proof that the debt is rightfully yours. Continue reading

We live in a world of technology and while we can really benefit from that, there are some aspects to technology that can rain on your parade and really cause damage to you and your personal finances. That side of technology is most damaging when your information is hacked and your identity is stolen. Learning how to prevent identity theft will go a long way toward protecting you.

It seems that there are an awful lot of really smart people who use that intelligence for evil instead of good. All you need to do is just listen to the news and you’ll hear quite often of the hacking of accounts from mega-giants like Sony, the DNC, and lots of retailers like Target and Neiman Marcus. It even happened to me about a year ago when my online banking account was hacked and it caused a lot of anxiety and grief and tied my money up for weeks and weeks. I was fortunate that I didn’t suffer any permanent loss. So what can you really do about this threat? Continue reading

I am constantly surprised at how many among us don’t know or fully understand bad credit and how it can affect us all in our everyday lives. There are some who think that having and using credit is evil or dangerous and so they avoid it at all costs. In fact, there are people who have no credit rating at all who have never had a credit card or loan for anything in their life. Rare, but true, and those folks may wake up one day and find that was a really huge mistake.

When it comes to credit, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to underestimate how much your credit rating may affect you and your lifestyle. In many areas, besides the amount of money you can borrow when you really need to, and the interest rate you will have to pay, mismanaging your credit can affect whether you can qualify for loans for a mortgage, car, or personal loan. Having no credit history means a lender just doesn’t know if you are a good risk and probably won’t lend you money or will charge you a higher interest rate and offer a lower amount if they do. Continue reading

Here’s a simple fact. Your credit score is one of the most valuable assets that you possess. If you are the one in 10 million that rolls around in cash and that doesn’t ever or won’t ever need to have credit, congratulations! But while the 1% bathes in their pile of cash, the rest of us need to watch our credit. You see, to be real, you can never take for granted your credit score. It is always a big part of your life even when you don’t think it is. I’ll explain.

To begin, your credit score is like your transcripts from school. It is a history, a report of your responsibility and track record of how you handle your finances just like your transcripts indicate your skills at academic endeavors. If you don’t have one, it is like applying for work and having no high school or college diploma. And if you do have one, it will follow you around either like a weight around your neck or like a life preserver to help make things safer and easier. A potential employer or landlord might check yours and it all has to do with what you have done, do, and will do! Continue reading