| Helping fix and improve my wife's credit |
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domingo3
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| Helping fix and improve my wife's credit |
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I have an excellent credit history - never missed a payment in my life, etc.
My wife doesn't. She had a few collections, which we've paid off completely now.
My question is where do we go from here to most rapidly build her credit?
She tried applying for a store credit card herself and was denied (and embarrased).
Will adding her as joint or an authorized user on some or all of my cards help?
Is a joint account viewed the same in scoring as an individual account? This matters to me for two reasons. First, will my score go down if my accounts are now listed as joint rather than individual? Second, is it important for her to try to get an individual account as soon as possible, or are the joint accounts good enough?
Is there anything else that can be done besides just waiting for the seven year time limits to come up for the negative (late accounts and collections) stuff to go away?
Thanks
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Tue Jan 03, 2006 11:09 pm |
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Jaszbo
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I would recommend getting out of any debt she has period. I do not believe if you add her to an account that your credit will hurt, unless you or she makes a mistake and then both will be effected. She needs to start over with using just cash or debt cards and make sure she's completely away from just doing the minimum thing. Then if you want you can add her to any of your loans if you'd like, which is one part of her score the amount, but she has to show good history.
It might not be the answer you want to hear, but it's going to take time for her credit to improve, there's no over night fix at all. Improvement takes time. Just imagine you are the lender and a strange who has messed up in the past wants to borrow money, would you be willing to lend to this person?
She shouldn't need that much credit anyway to be honest with you. I'm a firm believer that the only thing you need to borrow money for is only student loans (if you need it) and a mortgage. In my opinion I don't think you need to borrow money for anything else including a car loan. Having a good credit score is important, as it can help with intrest rates and even insurance, but the point is really not to have to borrow money.
Personally she shouldn't be applyng for a store credit card period, especially if she has a bad history.
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Wed Jan 04, 2006 7:03 pm |
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domingo3
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All her debt is gone. She knows she shouldn't have credit cards, and she won't ever carry a balance again.
For our current mortgage, I got it solely under my name, but I was hoping to improve her credit for a couple of reasons.
One is simply her self esteem. We will never carry a balance on a credit card, but we use them to pay for a lot of things and pay the balance in full at the end of the month. For her to get one on her own would be a boost.
The other is the next time we buy a house, it would be helpful if we could apply together.
Thanks for the reply,
d3
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Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:40 am |
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Rolo
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaszbo
In my opinion I don't think you need to borrow money for anything else including a car loan. Having a good credit score is important, as it can help with intrest rates and even insurance, but the point is really not to have to borrow money.
So you are saying, then, that I should have sold my investments, which were making 150%, in order to pay cash for my new car rather than taking the 4.5% loan. That was in 2003.
I made the same argument with my mortgage lender. I brought my portfolio to illustrate why I had no intention to make a down payment on a 5.75% loan out of my stocks earning 186%. That was in 2005.
cf. TSP thread. My 3-year TSP return is 20.1% (annualised). I contribute robustly to it largely due to the proper utilisation of credit and loans.
"Expect me when you see me."
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Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:01 am |
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Jaszbo
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Believe me I will bet anything in the world you cannot produce 186% return and if you did it one year you are better than any manager out there in the entire world. Maybe you are referring to real estate or something else or a personal busines, or maybe you miscalculated something.
A 186% is not resonable or you wouldn't just be a millionaire, but a billionaire.
let's just take 10k and do the math
years
1) 10k + 186% =28.6 (I'm already laughing)
2) 28.6 + 186% =
Actually why am I wasting my time. Go here anybody http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm
Put in 10k, 0, 5, 186, 1 and you'll see after 5 years you would be worth
$ 1,913,507.49
Isn't this funny, I'm talking only 10k here people and i'm only talking 5 years.
I mean then I start to question since you are worth almost 2 million why would you ever get a car loan or even a loan for a house. Why borrow when you are so rich? I mean with making 150% or even 186% return who needs to borrow money?
It reminds of the books that Robert Kiyosaki sells and he claims some high percentage, but late on in his books he finally comes down to a resonable figure.
Besides the scam artists that have seminars that claim to make double digit returns, which everybody who knows about investing knows you cannot make double digit returns consistiently in the market, unless you are better than bogle, better than Lynch, better than
I'm not sure if you are familiar with the author Eric Tyson. Well he has a section about people who claim to make these types of returns. Somebody actually published a book saying they had returns like 40% for the past 5 years. Well after a few groups did some research they found out the paper work was 100% bull. The club that claimed to do this was selling things and including that as their return. So if they had a golf club for 100 dollars that they bought for 50 dollars, they put that 50 dollars as considered return. After all the investigation was done I believe their return was more like 9%, not 40%.
A return of 186% just isn't resonable. Or imagine if I had 100k that I wanted to invest and let's hey you have 10 years. After 10 years you would have 3,661,510,899.65 ......... lol do you see where this values are not resonable.
A word to the wise, be care what people tell you
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Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:32 pm |
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ljourdan
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Location: FL
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quote:
Originally posted by Rolo
quote:
Originally posted by Jaszbo
In my opinion I don't think you need to borrow money for anything else including a car loan. Having a good credit score is important, as it can help with intrest rates and even insurance, but the point is really not to have to borrow money.
So you are saying, then, that I should have sold my investments, which were making 150%, in order to pay cash for my new car rather than taking the 4.5% loan. That was in 2003.
I made the same argument with my mortgage lender. I brought my portfolio to illustrate why I had no intention to make a down payment on a 5.75% loan out of my stocks earning 186%. That was in 2005.
cf. TSP thread. My 3-year TSP return is 20.1% (annualised). I contribute robustly to it largely due to the proper utilisation of credit and loans.
When you say 186% return you mean you have maybe say 50 different investments that are earning you like 4% return each and you are combining the returns to get a total of 186%? There is no way one single investment can give you 150%.
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Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:47 pm |
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domingo3
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Cash: $ 1.95
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Joined: 03 Jan 2006
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Well, this thread seems to be sufficiently hijacked.
To the hijackers:
No, I don't believe that anyone can consistently make 186% or even 86% investing.
On the other hand, you probably can beat a car or home loan rate with typical investments. If you make 9 or 10% in the long term, and you are disciplined, better to leave it invested and get the car or home loan. That's what I'm doing.
Back to the original subject, any other tips for my wife?
Thanks
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Sat Jan 07, 2006 12:12 am |
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UrCredit5
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Joined: 29 Aug 2005
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| Building Credit |
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I don't know how your wife is when it comes to spending. But if she was in debt before, I wouldn't jump to put her on any joint account with myself. An option would be for her to obtain a secured credit card to start building her credit back up until she is eligible for an unsecured card. Putting her on any account of yours would only hurt you if the account is not being properly maintained. So your not just looking at yourself to maintain the account correctly, but your wife also. If she messes up with the account, you are both penalized. So I suggest you see how she does with a secured card for about a year before you add her to any account of yours. Credit Cards are the best tools for building credit. Good Luck!
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Wed Jan 18, 2006 4:33 am |
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