Saturday, November 19, 2016

In the Green



As I am disappointed to have to write, you will be disappointed to have to read that I have not yet heard back from my brother. I’m okay with it; realistically not much time has passed, and these amends aren’t all about me by nature anyhow. This process is about repairing past damages, not rekindling old relationships, although that is the hope with this one. Who knows what the future holds.

And I digress. I do have some exciting news. If you remember not too long ago, I wrote about my experience with Credit Karma. I was a little peeved at first with the quantity of junk mail—both paper and electronic—that I received, but almost immediately that ceased and I’ve not seen any in a couple weeks. The app showed me two scores: one from TransUnion at 574, and one from Equifax at 667. Now, neither one was what you would bring to the bank loan table, or the poker table for that matter, but it was a place to start, and Credit Karma gave me the option to look through a few credit card choices for bringing those scores up. It didn’t take long before I found one that was willing to extend to me an unsecured credit line of $300. Clearly that isn’t much, but it was a form of trust, and I took them up on it. When it arrived, I made a small purchase with it, and when the bill came, I paid it off. Simple.

Yesterday I received an email from Credit Karma informing me that there had been a change to my credit scores, and when I looked I was shocked. My TransUnion score jumped up 87 points to 654, and Equifax went up to 722, which is considered a good credit score. Those are substantial jumps, and credit means a lot these days.

As John Oliver attests in this 20-minute clip from his H.B.O. show, Last Week Tonight, your credit score can affect everything from interest rates on an auto loan or mortgage, to the application process for an apartment, or even a job. These three little digits can literally make or break you, so it’s important to keep them in check.

It is very important that the information found in you report is accurate. 5% of all credit reports contain information that is not just incorrect, but damaging. Sure, that’s only one in twenty, but when you’re looking at the population of our country, that’s 10,000,000 reports that show improper info.

The best way to keep track of your reports that won’t cost you anything or have a negative impact on your score is by going to http://www.annualcreditreport.com. All three bureaus are required to give you a full comprehensive report once per calendar year, and this site is where to get that all done in one shot. Now, I tried this a few months back and was denied because I didn’t answer their tricky questions correctly, so I’m grateful for Credit karma and their easy registration process. I would imagine that most people would have an easier time than I did, because my credit has a rather violent, and erratic history involving dozens of addresses and accounts in bad standing. Well, formerly in bad standing. Give it a shot, you might be surprised at what you find.

Building credit is a process, and I’ve only just begun. My history of accounts in good standing is only one-month old so it would be very easy to revert to a sub-par score with one missed payment, so I simply must pay attention to what I’m doing, just like everywhere else in life. Eventually, I will be able to use this foundation of trust to do something significant like buy a new car or home, something I never thought about for my future until a month ago. That’s right, until I saw my scores I assumed that my credit was so bad that there wasn’t even the possibility of turning it around. And here we are, one month later, in the green. Sometimes we just need to put in a minimal amount of work and amazing things can happen.

And Counting

I remember vividly waking up at 5:19am, one minute precisely before the lights would come on; the indication that it was time to stand a...