Archive results for “May 2006f 2006”
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Even with all of my debt, my FICO score is 711 and that is considered a good score. According to some literature, I should be able to get a loan with no problem but as soon as lenders see my debt to income ratio (52% – the desirable is less than 15%) I think they head for the hills.
How could it be that my score is so high given all of my credit card debt and other debt?
It all boils down to how the FICO score is calculated (as found at myfico.com):
35% – payment history
30% – amounts owed
15% – length of credit history
10% – new credit
10% – types of credit in use
One thing that has always been a top priority is to try to make sure all payments to debt have been paid on time. There are no late payments showing on my credit report. That right there is 35% of my score and I believe it’s the best thing I could have done considering my debt situation. Without that, I’m sure my score would be quite low.
One negative that I always seem to have on my FICO score reports is the fact that most of my credit cards were maxed out. That feels good, I can say were maxed out now 
With the identity protector program I am on, I will be issued a new FICO score late this month. I am actually looking forward to seeing how much it may raise with the lower balances on my credit cards. I say “may” because you never know, I have found my FICO scores to jump all around in the past (from 706 to 726). I will be a little disappointed if it doesn’t raise just a little bit.
UPDATE: My new FICO score has arrived
My husband and I get along fairly well, except for one little thing. We often do not communicate clearly with each other. He knows that I am really trying to pay down debt (I take care of all of the finances), but I didn’t make it really clear to him how aggressive I was being. And when I say aggressive, I mean that I am often leaving only a few dollars in our checking account. That action is what led to using the credit card this past weekend.
We did get in a little bit of an argument because my husband does not understand how we can be making more money but still be broke. My reasoning is that I’d rather be broke for a little bit longer now and pay as much as possible to the credit cards. Once they are paid off – they will be money for other things. He would like to use some of the money now to have fun and purchase things we could not purchase before.
And that is where compromise comes in. We still haven’t finished discussing all of the details, but part of our resolution is that my husband is not going to quit his job at the moment. He is, however, switching his hours so he will have time to work on his business as well as have the same days off as me (which we haven’t had in ages). We are also going to use some of his earnings for “fun” things this summer.
Just like most things, a marriage can be a lot of work. But the compromise thing can help a lot 
My favorite time to get some reading in is at the beginning of the week because of the great carnivals and festivals. Here are the ones that I participated in this week:
Carnival of Personal Finance #49 at Frugal for Life.
Carnival of Debt Reduction #36 at Make Love, Not Debt.
Festival of Frugality #24 at Tired but Happy.
Happy Reading!
When we purchased our first home, we made a big decision. No gas powered mower. I think most of our neighbors give a chuckle when they see us see us mowing our decent-sized yard with our reel mower
We wouldn’t have it any other way.
1.) My son can mow with his little toy mower basically right next to me. I don’t have to worry about things shooting out at blazingly fast speeds and hurting someone. Also, when I stop, the mower blades stop. I love our mower for the safety aspect of it.
2.) We don’t have to worry about purchasing gas which is really handy right now with the higher gas prices. It’s funny how a decision made almost three years ago is really helping to save money right now.
3.) You get some great exercise. All you have to do is walk the mower around your yard and you get some exercise as well as a nice looking lawn.
4.) It’s quiet! Although not completely silent, it is quiet compared to a gas-powered mower. We can easily mow or lawn during times that would usually be off-limits for a gas-powered mower.
Not only was our mower very nicely priced ($80), it has been an excellent addition to our simple life. If you have never tried one, give it a spin. You just might like it.
I’d like to extend a warm welcome to those visiting from It’s Your Money: Money Musings. As Michael pointed out, having a blog and discussing my debt has been a huge help with reducing my debt. If you happen to be thinking of doing it – I say “Go For It!”
Interesting enough, he mentioned the word accountability and he hit the nail on the head. Today I just confessed that I used a credit card and I feel horrible. It would be easy to not include that information on my blog – but I couldn’t do that. While it feels good to share the success of being able to pay more towards my debt, it wouldn’t be right of me if I didn’t share my setbacks as well. I’m trying to give everyone the best picture of my financial situation as I can and I disclose where I spend my money as well as how much my family makes.
I hope you enjoy your stay, and I invite you to subscribe to my feed to keep updated.
A thank you to everyone for stopping by
A lot of stuff is going on right now, and I can’t seem to find the words to write it down but I am trying. In the meantime, I feel obligated to report something that happened yesterday that I am not very proud of.
I have been very aggressively paying extra money towards our debt and I really didn’t leave much room for other things until payday. This lead to a little disagreement between my husband and I (one of the things I am trying to write about).
Well, we went shopping yesterday and I’m not very happy to report this…but the credit card came out. Total bill – $104.00. It hurt like you wouldn’t believe to do it and I saw my past coming back to haunt me. I know after payday I will be able to pay it right back, but that hasn’t helped how I feel. I couldn’t even swipe it – I had my husband swipe his card on one of our joint accounts.
I’ll get over having to use it, I know I will. It’s just hard to have done it and hard to have to come on here and write it. I could try to justify the use many different ways, but I don’t want to.
As I often say many times, I just have to pick myself up and keep going. I can’t let one mistake derail the progress that has been made. Just learn from what happened and keep going.
I’ve been waiting all month to get the statement for Credit Card #2 today so I could update my debt. As you can tell in my little “chart” there is a significant change from April 30. Today has actually been a bummer of a day for other reasons (I’ll write later on that), but seeing that number puts a smile to my face.
I have to give a lot of credit to my tax return. It really gave a jump start to reducing my debt. Now, from this point forward, the only way I will be able to reduce that number is from our income and possibly from selling some personal items. I no longer have large chunks of money coming to use towards debt.
I admit, I am a little nervous but I’m so ready to see where this goes and see what happens. I wonder how I will feel when I can write, “Credit Card Debt Update – $0″. I smile ear to ear just thinking about it
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About This Site
My Debt
- Original Debt: $97,293.06
- Paid: $1,927.89
- Remaining: $95,365.17
- Emergency Fund: $1100
- Broken Down
- Line of Credit 2: $0.00
- Line of Credit 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 2: $245.00
- Credit Card 3: $405.00
- Credit Card 6: $1,785.00
- Credit Card 7: $2,381.17
- Consolidation Loan: $11,000.00
- Credit Card 10: $14,519.00
- Auto Loan 1: $16,093.00
- Credit Card 11: $23,873.00
- Auto Loan 2: $25,064.00
Finance Blogging Buddies
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- Financial Hack
- Free Money Finance
- From the Brink of Bankruptcy
- Generation X Finance
- GRACEful Retirement
- Grad Money Matters
- It’s Your Money
- Josephsangl.com
- Kick Debt’s Butt
- Lazy Man and Money
- Low Income Life
- Make Love Not Debt
- Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge
- Mighty Bargain Hunter
- Money, Matter and More Musings
- My 1st Million at 33
- No Credit Needed
- One Million and Beyond
- Personal Finance Advice
- pfblogs.org
