In college, I had more than one professor tell my class at the outset that he did not ever award A+ grades to his students. An A+ denoted perfection, and as students, we were not able to get a perfect score in these classes. There was always room for improvement. For years, I assumed that [...]
Many of us are already familiar with the fact that a good credit history is essential if you want to save money on loans. Indeed, your interest rate on home loans, auto loans and credit cards will be lower if you have a higher credit score. A good FICO score can save you hundreds, even [...]
Recovering from bankruptcy can seem insurmountable right after you’ve been through the wringer of filing. Whether you’ve had to deal with unexpected medical bills—the leading reason for filing personal bankruptcy—or you’ve been through a rough divorce or a bout of unemployment, or even just a string of bad financial decisions, going bankrupt can make you [...]
“I’d like to purchase a mobile phone,” I told the guy at the store. He had me fill an application, and after a few minutes, came back to me and said, “I’m sorry, we can’t give you a contract. You don’t have any credit history.” I arrived at the US in 1999 with no credit [...]
When it comes to your credit history, chances are that you aren’t thinking about your gym membership. But maybe you should be. While your monthly gym membership payments aren’t going to show up on a report with the three major credit bureaus, your failure to cancel your membership could, in fact, ruin your credit. This [...]
Credit repair services and credit monitoring services often make it a point to dispute negative items on your credit report. This is because negative information about your payment history, and inaccurate information about your credit habits, can damage your credit score. When you dispute these negative items, the creditor that reported them has 30 days [...]
