Keeping Your Options Open?

Life can be a very interesting journey and we all only get one go to get it right. Some may get a better start than others but still we pretty much get the same journey.

If you are one whose journey is not filled with rose petals when maybe it might have been a few years ago, all is not lost! It just means you have to learn new things or adjust some old habits. I believe we should always keep our options open for new opportunities to make our journey better, would you agree?

My thoughts are like this: if you have the chance to get new knowledge that would make your family's life better, which is more important - your loved ones or your ego?

One of the biggest fall-outs to the economic meltdown has been FICO scores. Where a score of 720 and above used to be a very good score, now credit-givers are looking for an 800 FICO. There are some factors which affect your score in ways you would never think it would and others make sense. While trying to help a gentleman and his wife work out a solution to their lowered credit availability and much lower household income, I found the husband was truly unwilling to accept that he needed assistance in making adjustments to his thinking as much as he did to his old spending habits. He clearly felt that what he knew about credit - which, by the way, was how it was treated pre-2007 - was superior. Using his logic, he kept doing the same things and these mistakes were killing his wife's FICO.

To get a basic idea of what could affect your score adversely, you can read this article I found on Yahoo! Finance: "Common Credit Card Mistakes". Using your cards can be a good thing; just be aware not paying back on time definitely is a score killer.

Even understanding that the "experts" may get things wrong, it still makes sense to adjust your thinking if your income changes to the extent you cannot have the lifestyle you had before the change.

Keep your mind open to new ideas and concepts; lifelong learning is what makes this journey so much more fun!

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." - Ben Franklin

I'm looking forward to a fantastic 2010 and hope to see you all there too!

Ta~Jax

Wow! What Will They Think Of Next?

Just read this little post of Yahoo! Finance and, boy oh boy! They keep finding new ways to stay in black while customers are still in the red!

Who is "they"? The banking industry...you know, the ones who are also charging debit card users and online banking users astronomical account fees to cover purchases and payment. Take a moment to read this article, if you please; I think it's important you know what's happening: "5 Evil Things Credit Card Companies Can Still Do".

This is what's happening - there is legislation that limits some of the fees and rates charges on existing balances, protections for new account holders and how often increases on rates can occur on older accounts. There are still late payment fees that will apply and any other action a bank may have to take on delinquent accounts.

But, in light of the legislation that has been signed into law, our friendly bankers will now be able to charge for not using your card in 12 months, for not carrying a minimum balance or even for not charging enough in a 12 month period!

This is outrageous! I think we don't really need the banks to tell us they want us broke anymore, do we? They have no interest in how you and I live as long as they can charge us for ridiculous and, in many ways, frivolous fees so they may make money.

Obviously, no amount of law-making is going to protect us from these guys so I think it's time we look to alternative ways to bank utilizing more local banks & credit unions since the top players are just going to keep abusing our relationship with them.


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