Comments on: I Guess Our Mortgage Is Officially Considered Small

By: kim

kim — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:07:20 +0000

My FICO dropped 40 points when I paid off a high balance zero interest promo right before it was over. It was a high credit limit card and I canceled it. That was a really big shock to me.

By: suzannah

suzannah — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:58:07 +0000

i’m not sure that children’s product resellers are out of the woods, yet: “The new safety law does not require resellers to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold. However, resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit. Those resellers that do sell products in violation of the new limits could face civil and/or criminal penalties.”

the way that press release is worded, it doesn’t sound like it would be worth the legal risks to resell children’s stuff…

what a sad, terrible mess!

another crazy credit report thing–they lower it ever time anyone does an inquiry into your credit, for whatever the reason. dumb dumb dumb.

By: LM

LM — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:48:55 +0000

I just checked our scores, and am mystified that my husband’s score has not improved since we bought our condo. In fact, it’s gone down since we got the condo. We always thought his scores were lower than they should be because of the lack of a real estate mortgage. He makes substantially more money than I do and pays off his credit cards every month. The only debt he has is our mortgage.

Meanwhile, when refinancing my mom’s property with her, I discovered that my mom’s credit score is about 80 points above ours. She has been on SSI since 1987 and has about $4k in credit-card debt, making only $600 a month.

I’m continually confused.

By: Kacie

Kacie — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:51:02 +0000

i hate credit scores! They are super dumb. Mine is going down, since I’m no longer using credit cards or applying for loans or anything.

I don’t have a mortgage (but will probably try to get one in a few years) and I don’t want to pay a higher interest rate because of it. So, I might end up charging my cell phone bill or something each month just to keep my credit score active.

If you don’t want to pay for your credit score again (I’m sure you don’t!) you can visit http://www.creditkarma.com and view it for free. It’s ad-supported, I believe.

By: AnnJo

AnnJo — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:24:30 +0000

A lot of credit scoring is counter-intuitive.

My auto insurance gives big discounts for high “insurance scores” which correlate highly with your credit score. I was a few points short of a higher discount and thought I could increase it by cancelling an old credit card that I was no longer using. Big mistake.

I’d had the card for probably 15 years, and gradually the credit limit had been increased (not by my request) to over $35,000. I hadn’t used it in 5 years, and figured the high credit limit, combined with all my other credit lines, must be hurting my credit score even though most of that credit wasn’t being used.

Turned out the higher the ratio between your available credit and the credit you actually use, the better. So it’s better to owe $1,000 on a $20,000 credit line than $500 on a $1,000 credit line. But I’m not sure that applies if you REQUEST the increases in credit lines, as opposed to just getting them from the company for whatever reason they give them.

Also, by eliminating a card with a very long history, even one that I wasn’t using, I lost a few more points.

My insurance company was very helpful in figuring out what would help and what had hurt. Wish I’d called them first.

By: FrugalBabe

FrugalBabe — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:05:14 +0000

MITBeta – Thanks for the heads up on the link! I fixed it, and now it goes to the news story about how thrift stores aren’t going to have to comply with the testing rules.

By: MITBeta

MITBeta — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:30:11 +0000

()

By: MITBeta @ Don't Feed the Alligators

MITBeta @ Don't Feed the Alligators — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:17:30 +0000

I’m confused by the first link in this post. It links to the other post, not to any article that updates the information about the reselling of kids clothing. Am I missing something?

Thanks!

By: Becca

Becca — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:38:07 +0000

My husband and his father have the same first name, same middle initial, and same last name. We recently moved to a completely different state. We now get AARP mail for my father in law, credit card applications for his now defunct flower shop, credit card apps for his wife, and general junk mail for both of them. Luckily, the credit reports themselves are clean on our ends, but it is so irritating to have to deal with their junk mail. (I opted out of junk and credit card offers for ourselves a LONG time ago.) And of course, my husband wants to give our first son a similar name. Will the madness ever end?

By: Gord

Gord — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:22:01 +0000

I would recommend everyone check their credit report. I couldn’t believe how many errors there were on mine. Some of those errors had a big effect on my score. Like the bank line of credit that was tied to a house I used to own….still showed me owing $75,000 even though the house had been sold and the credit line paid(it has to be, or the title won’t clear the sale). Numerous other accounts showed as being open and owing balances (but not in arrears) So, if for no other reason, check your report for errors! They are usually easy enough to fix, if you don’t mind being on the phone for a couple of days…..