"Looking Good During The Bad Times" Lessons In Debt, Credit And Home Ownership

"Looking Good During The Bad Times” is not a lesson in fashion, but one about making the most of what you have in regards to your largest investment – your home ! Your home may have dropped in value like your neighbors, but it doesn’t have to look like it. IF you have found more time on your hands due to employment cut backs, take advantage of the time. Structure a “To Do List”, every home owner should have one of these stuck on the refrigerator even during the best of times.

You’ve probably heard your Granny say, “No matter how broke you become, you can always be clean.” Old wives tales do hold a bit of wisdom in them. The fact remains, clean, shiny and pretty is better than dirty, ugly and unwanted. If you are facing any kind of financial crises at all, you must protect your largest asset. If any equity is to be realized, more will come from your home looking good than neglected and dirty.

It’s called ‘ROI’=Return On Investment. You can experience in the worse of times a positive ROI in your home by taking little actions that can produce big reactions and
profitability. Increase the curb appeal on your home by removing outside clutter. Sweep the walks and driveway. Cut grass and trim out dead wood in trees and bushes. Pressure wash your shutters, window sashes, and trim. Put a fresh coat of paint on the front door and perhaps a shiny new kick plate at the bottom. Clean the light fixture of birds nest and cobwebs.

Next walk through your home. Really look at it as if you were to buy it today. The stained flooring, the soiled wall paper, chipped paint, hand prints on the cabinets, broken tiles, hardware loose, uneven and cluttered pictures or wall hangings and all waiting to be put your ‘To Do List”. The biggest challenge is eliminating clutter. If you can’t bring yourself to make all of those tiny decisions, call in your toughest friend and give the ‘OK’ to be strong for you. The point of this lesson is to maximize what you have in time, and assets. You will feel good about your ‘ROI’ while making your house a more comfortable home. Clean is good and it’s affordable !

Spectrum Resources provides counseling in daily money management, providing education, resources and options to those seeking financial self sufficiency. Debt, credit and home ownership issues always comes back to you setting priorities that make a positive difference in your life. Only you can make the decisions which truly make a difference.

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"WHY Does My Credit Score Go Up And Down ?"

Your credit score seems to be changing for no reason. Don't go crazy wondering WHY your credit score bounces like a ball. Your score will always go up and down as a reaction to your actions. Your credit score is a mathematical reflection of your daily money management decisions.

You get up in the morning, head out for work, stop for gas, pick up a sandwich for your lunch, drop by the dry cleaners, drive through at the pharmacy to pickup a prescription, drop your child off at the daycare and pay for this week's child care. All of these transactions just in the morning before you go to work. Once at the office you pay your personal bills; paying online and some by regular mail, again transactions that creates changes in your credit score.

Yes, your credit score is like a bouncing ball, each action is given a mathematical point that creates your score.! You can now see how fragile your credit score is, how easily it can drop, think of it as being liquid, ever changing, never permanent, and at the same time, understand the credit scores can be raised through certain actions as well.

A charge on a credit card, is an action equates to “activity” which triggers an alert in your history, and may lower your score. A FICO credit score could go down just because there are changes and those changes are NOT reported as an alert. Then it could go down just because there are multiple changes on the credit report in the same day, even though some of the changes are good.

As you can see satisfying the whims of the credit bureaus’ computer system is tricky. You could actually pay off a debt and lower your credit score at the same time. You never want to close an account and do want to keep all accounts active. If accounts are inactive then the creditors will close it and that really lowers your score.

A balance increase on any one of your accounts may lower a FICO score. Or maxing out a card, going over the debt to credit ratio limit, which is usually determined by any amount of debt over 40% of the credit limit. The lowered score can be raised by simply applying payment to reduce the debt back down, changing your debt to credit ratio, especially if you bring it under that 40% limit. Bottom line, credit is not carved in stone, and with professional guidance you can learn the skills to maintain your score from bouncing out of control.

Contact Spectrum Resources, (863) 967-0660, a seven year old organization dedicated to assisting people in learning how to live inside their income. One of the resources Spectrum Resources has is a program where the client works directly with a paralegal and our certified counselors to navigate through the ever changing rules of building good credit scores. Your score will go up in 75 Days - Guaranteed ! Visit: www.CreditJusticeServices.com/?ccc=1242




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