I love carrying a camera phone.  Of course, I was cheap (I mean frugal) and waited until I could get one cheap, but I wish I had gotten one sooner because of all the odd things I can get photos of.  I’m thinking of starting my own “Gallery of the Unintentionally Funny” with some of the shots I’m getting.  Here’s my first one that relates to personal finance…

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Maybe you keep track of your credit score.  Maybe you don’t.  Either way, look out kids, there’s a new score it town!

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The assault on my debt continues…

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I’m facing a bit of a home refinancing dillemma. Back in the (stupid about money) day, I took an interest-only loan on my house. I also have a 2nd mortgage, but at least that’s at a fixed rate that I’m paying down automatically every month. The interest-only loan is killing me. Every month, the rate goes up - it’s tied to the LIBOR rate - and so does my payment. So should I refinance?

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I went to pay off one of my credit cards tonight.  Then I realized I had it paid off.  Now I’m closing it.  Life is good.

In a previous post about credit cards, a commenter made an excellent point. What he said made me do a reality check on how I think about money. He simply pointed out that if I paid off my credit cards, I wouldn’t have increased my net worth one dime. How could that be? And if my net worth doesn’t change, why should I even bother to pay off my credit cards?
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I have eleven credit cards.  There, I said it.  It made me feel a little bit better, but not much.  Let me try again.  I have eleven credit cards.  Good grief, that’s a lot of cards to have.

The good news (for me, not the banks who issued them) is that I’m getting rid of them one by one.  Here’s how I’m doing it:

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I’m a skeptic.  When I first heard I could get my credit report free annually, and get it online, I was sure there was a catch.  I’ve heard too much about scams online involving idenity theft and who knows what else.  But this time I heard the claim, it was from two sources that I trust so I investigated further.

Sure enough, I was able to get my credit report online, get it for free and best of all I can do it every year.  You can, too.  Here’s how.

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