I'm curious, since I've seen you posting a lot about business, finance, and economics, what is your practical experience in same post-college?Originally Posted by GardoneVT
I'm curious, since I've seen you posting a lot about business, finance, and economics, what is your practical experience in same post-college?
Post college-zero.
Pre-College? Active duty enlisted , Financial Management Airman.
The Minority Marksman.
"When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."
-a Ch'an Buddhist axiom.
When I was a younger copper I had some credit cards, truck payment, house payment, Harley payment, etc. A friend introduced me to Ramsey's material and I "bought in" and decided to give it a run. I only didn't like the Christian based them (I am, but hear me out) because I was afraid it would turn off folks who probably should have been listening to his advice.
I paid off everything (except the house) within a year or so working off duty and O/T shifts. My wife wanted to change careers and getting a Master's degree was part of that, we paid cash for that. I wanted to go back to school and finish my BS, we paid cash for that. I got promoted and things were well financially but my department was poisonous. We had two kids. Still no debt other than a mortgage. All of this was on a patrolman's salary, my wife had quit work to do the master's program.
When things got so bad at my PD that it was affecting home life we decided to make a change. This was not police work affecting us: I'd worked nothing but nights and weekend my entire career. SWAT calls on the holidays, all of the best worst parts of the job. But the poison of the admin was really causing us stress. A job opportunity came up in the state we wanted to retire to. It was a huge pay cut, and basically starting over, albeit in investigations rather than patrol work. Having no debt and living well within a budget allowed us to make this huge life change. Pension started over (I had ~14 years in...), but so what, that can be re-invested and there's probable a decent chance Illinois would have gone bankrupt and screwed us on our pensions anyway.
Quite literally every aspect of our life has improved since making this move, including a third child. We've easily adjusted to the pay difference. We still keep a credit card, but only to buy stuff online, I've never had a bill that wasn't paid immediately. I may not be able to run right out and buy a new Benelli when I see it at the store, but in a month it'll be mine if I want it bad enough. I do not think we could have made this move that gave us a new (and much happier) lease on life if we hadn't been debt free.
I think this should be taught in every police academy; the young kids do way too much harley, boat, jet ski stuff that really limit their career choices.
"If I had a grandpa, he would look like Nyeti"
Point of reference:
I'm 28 with a 790 score. Never had a credit card.
Graduated from college with $30k in debt. Will pay it off early(7 years) at my current pace.
Took out a $10k car loan fresh out of school. Never missed a payment.
Bought a small, cheap house about 3 years ago. Took on a modest mortgage($100k).
Prior to ever making a payment on any of my student loans my score was 740. I think Ramsey is a bit over the top and sensationalistic... Keep your total debt less than 2x your income and it's manageable. When you are young debt is often the only way to make large purchases (school, home, cars). Its a tool that can be extremely beneficial or very dangerous.
If you need to "use" debt to buy something, then you shouldn't be buying it. A house may be the one exception, if everything else is in order. When did our society start thinking that everyone, fresh out of school, should be able to have a car/house/whatever? Oh yeah, in the 70s when CC came into mainstream use. As Nyeti and others have pointed out, having student loans, car loans, house loans, cis a recipe for disaster. Everything has to work out just right to get out from under all that. Often it doesnt. But hey, I'm sure your college finance professor is a liquid millionaire, right? He must know what he's doing.
As Greece is begging for a bailout (more debt) to save them from their debt, and it potentially pulling down the EU with it.
I feel this is a timely post on debt.
For the original post Credit karma and other similar credit features from credit card companies like capital one and discover give you a good feel for what factors are changing your credit score.
Interesting side benefit of a ruined credit score. I'm thinking about buying a house, took a look at my credit report. They conflated a bunch of my father's stuff with mine, including date of death. I am officially dead.
COOL!
If anyone has the number for CIA black ops I'm ready to enter the ghost assassin training program.
The answer, it seems to me, is wrath. The mind cannot foresee its own advance. --FA Hayek Specialization is for insects.
FWIW, my wife and I both have zero credit scores and have been following the Dave Ramsey plan for years. We're trying to bump up in house and have our mortgage approval. Took a bit longer to get through but you can get a mortgage without a credit score.
- It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
- If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
- "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG
As stated in my original post , I have had an 812 score for several years and all of a sudden it dropped to 798 for a couple of months but now it is back to 812.
This has took place with no changes in any way.
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