A Love/Hate Relationship: How your credit score can open and slam doors for youPosted by Nick Niesen on November 8th, 2010 There are many ways to get ahead financially: attend seminars where you cut up your credit cards with hundreds of other people, participate in debt consolidation services that help you take out a home equity loan or refinance your home, or you can transfer debt on one credit card to another credit card with an introductory rate of 0% (which goes up to 12% six months down the road). The reason these methods don?t work is because we don?t concurrently cut our expenses while implementing these strategies. Even if we?re making more money, unless we cut expenses, we will continue to spend more money than we have and incur debt. Manage yourself and your money. Money is like food; we don?t eat only when we?re hungry, and we certainly don?t spend only when we need something. Beware: Debt forgiveness can hurt you. The company that forgives your debt can issue a 1099C, which means the forgiven amount gets added to your taxed income. When there?s a will, there?s another way: What?s in a number? How you got your credit score: There are three reporting services that can give you your score: Equifax.com, Experian.com and Transunion.com. At least once, do an experiment and order a report from all three. They probably will provide a complimentary report each year, per person. You will most likely find inconsistencies in the reports such as missing and incorrect information. Each time a credit report is run on you, your score is lowered by two or three points. You still want to shop around for a mortgage, but consider using a mortgage broker who runs one report to shop around the loan. If you go to five different banks, that can drop your score 15 points. Like it? Share it!More by this author |