What is in a Fico Score?

Dave Ramsey says to not worry about fico scores.

I work in the financial industry and I cannot help but wonder about ours. We recently pulled ours and were not so happy with the outcome.

It’s another incentive to work harder and pay off our balances. I like most of what Dave says but he says you don’t need a fico score.

His reasoning is that you don’t need a score since you won’t be borrowing money. I agree with this statement however, if I had had bad credit when I got my job I would possibly have not gotten it.

I think our goal should be to get everything paid off and watch our score go back up. In order to keep our credit we might have to consider having a LOC at our credit union or a credit card that we have to pay off at the end of every month.

Wouldn’t that be a great feeling to pay off our credit card every month? We can’t wait to get there.

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robin@brokefamily.com

Robin 3 July 2009 Tips No Comments

White House Gardening

The Obamas are making some headway on revamping their yard this spring.

They have just planted an 1,100 sq foot garden (Our house is 1400sq ft.)

They are hoping to provide organic foods for their family meals and some formal dinners. Hopefully, this will help spark more American families to get out there and start small gardens themselves. Our Tomatoes are growing so fast I don’t know if we are going to be able to eat them all. If not we can always give the extras to our friends and family.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/dining/20garden.html

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robin@brokefamily.com

Robin 3 July 2009 Personal Finance No Comments

Are you a Tightwad or a Spendthrift?

I found this really neat article on CNN!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/06/18/marriage.cheapskate.spendthrift/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

BrokeDad and I are both Spendthrifts…we like stuff is a more appropriate term for us.

It’s good that we found each other because we would be a tightwad’s worst nightmare. Since we have started on a cash only system it has made us more of a tightwad family. Frugality would not be a word that openly describes us but we are trying to be more careful with our money.

An example of our new tightwadness would be that I used to love going to McDonald’s every other morning to get an Iced Vanilla Coffee. I still love these addicting drinks but with cash in my pocket its harder to buy. This morning for example I realized I only have around $50 to get us through the next week and a half so treating myself to a coffee was not an option. This would never have happened if we were still using our credit cards.

Advice to Spendthrifts and Tightwads, chill out on both sides. Spendthrifts like myself, our advice would be to start using a cash system and freeze your credit cards. You will eventually start having Tightwad tendencies. Another big way to encourage tightwadness would be to see your debt get paid off faster and faster. We started paying off our personal loan and every penny we had extra went towards paying it off with a 10.25% interest rate. We got competitive about how much we could put towards it each month.

For Tightwads realize that having money it the bank does not always buy happiness. I can’t wait for our goal to not be paying off debt but putting money towards saving. I had a daydream the other day about us taking the extra we had each month and socking it away in a high-interest savings account. However, when we do have money we are still going to want to go out to eat and enjoy vacations.

Find the middle ground and stick to it. For us it’s working hard on our current goals and trying not to deviate.

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robin@brokefamily.com

Robin 2 July 2009 Tips No Comments

Coupons Are A Great Way To Try New Products.

Many stores are offering discounts and sales on new products.

Trying to get us in the door is what they are doing. Companies are doing the same by offering coupons for their new products to try and gain interest.

Recently at CVS there was the new Purex Complete 3 in 1 Laundry Sheets. It was on sale for $6.99 and you received $2 extra bucks back, there was also a $2 coupon offer in the paper.

I bought two of them for $2.99 each and they were originally $8.99. I didn’t know if we were going to like them but it turns out that they are a pretty nifty product and at the sale price they are worth it. If you know any kids going off to college this would be a perfect in a care package.

If I didn’t have the incentive I would never have thought to purchase them. Couponing is a great way to have the latest and greatest at your local grocery store. Your kids will have the coolest snacks in their lunches for pennies on the dollar.

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robin@brokefamily.com