Posted on 11/24/2008 6:47:21 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Fico is an I love debt score. It’s debt you have, newly acquired debt, and debt you might get.
If you never borrow a dime your credit score is worse (0) than someone who recently had a foreclosure (300s)
I mean, unless the laminate is truly ripped up and needs replacing.
My next door neighbor buys a new stove every 5 years even though the old one is perfectly fine!
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Right now we have carpeting that was there when we bought the house in 2000. It's cream colored and not of the highest quality.
It is a nightmare to keep clean. I must shampoo at least every three months, it shows everything, now you can see wear where the most traffic is. I want to replace it with something easy and long lasting - wood laminate is my choice.
So, it's not really a purchase that is not necessary in the long run. I try to buy quality things that will last.
Our 2.99 was a teaser rate about 4 years ago "2.99% for the life of the loan until balance is paid". It's a Chase card.
To get those offers, work long and hard for a great credit score. Pay all bills on time, pay off others. Own your house at a fixed rate with affordable payments, pay off your vehicles. Have a two salary household, with a solid employment history. Make them WANT you to have their credit card.
If the interest rate on current cards goes up, call them, threaten to pay it off, or switch cards unless you get the rate you want. Be able to actually do that.
Only over the short term, as people shift to paying their debt rather than buying new crap. A 1% minimum was unsupportable, as it resulted in people paying less than their interest, resulting in an ever-growing balance. A 5% minimum will force people to cut consumption to get out of debt.
The ideal would be to not charge anything further, make the monthly payment, and pay cash with whatever's left.
Yep. Our Fico score was high because we had massive credit card debt. Our credit report showed us paying cards off, but still maintaining debt. We didn't actually pay the cards off though, we'd just transfer balances to low rate card offers.
LOL! We've been doing that since the 80's just trying to keep the debt manageable and pay it off. Now that we're almost there, I couldn't care less about my fico.
We are among the lucky ones. Well, lucky to have dug ourselves out wile the economy still allowed for it, anyway. There really is nothing "lucky" about working hard and doing without to get yourself in good financial position.
Best I can tell you don’t have a 2.99 rate....anymore.... I got a 0 rate not long ago on a transferred balance... There is no one out there giving 2.99 rates on new purchases...
We don't make purchases on it. It was a transferred balance. And we have 2.99 for the LIFE of the loan.
We do not use credit cards for purchases. We use cash.
qft.
I finished paying off all my debt earlier this year. It’s been great
The LESS you owe, the higher your score.
Right. I din't make myself clear. We had massive credit card debt.
When we went to buy our house, it looked like we had paid off more credit debt than we actually had paid off. We still had credit card debt, but we also had a large available balance with the cards we had paid off.
Yes, they did make it tougher, but not impossible, to go bankrupt.
We owe less than 50K on our home and have been paying an extra 100 each month towards principle. After we pay off the 7500, we'll take that payment money and apply it to the principle on the house as well.
Our home loan is only 550 each month, including the insurance and taxes, so when we pay off those cards in a few months, we'll be making about $500 additional principle and get that baby paid off toot-sweet!
I don't carry any debt except one mortgage. And that will be paid off in less than 3 years. So I'm with you. The best way to live is without debt. My comment had to do with the risk in closing the accounts - a move that can lower your score in the event you need to borrow money in the future. Just take your unused credit cards - - put a rubber band around them and put them in a safe place. Then never use them.
I remember that same mentallity being used in 2005.”Oh,they’ll pay off their cc faster and get out debt”.Look where we are 3 years later.We ALL are bailing out the same banks who issue credit cards.
They should raise the rate to 100%/mo.
Anyone that doesn’t have the money in the bank to pay the bill at the end of the month shouldn’t be using a charge card.
Except that most people paying minimums don't have double the amount for the payment lying around doing nothing.
So, given the choice between paying mortgage or inflated credit card bill, the mortgage wins out.
So the CC bill gets bigger, with penalties and fees. Minimum payment gets bigger.
Repeat.
If its a matter of responsibility with money being equal to responsibility with an automobile, why not check out my housekeeping standards while they're at it?
Banks know what you're saying is true. Banks are setting themselves up for a bailout based on a bogus story. The bailout they're trolling for will be blamed their customers. I guess it'd be too obvious if they charged everyone 20% of their balance every month.
I only have one card with a $30k limit, have always paid it in full as soon as the statement is available, have never had a loan except a mortgage that was paid off 18 years ago so what’s my score?
I’m not willing to pay some credit company to find out.
Will be interesting to see if this leads to congress retooling the bankruptcy law that was skewed to protect the CC companies vs a person’s home... now that most peoples homes are not worth the paper they are written on that creates a whole new scenario; butI’m guessing more than doubling the CC payments is going to create a whole lot of defaults.
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