The New Year is here and with that comes a time of reflection.If you are a person that is not in the habit of setting goals, I would encourage you to do so.Having goals gives you direction and clarity about where you are headed in life.If you normally set goals for yourself I want to strongly encourage you to add a goal that I bet you have never had.
Many people have goals based around; health, relationships or finances.The goal I believe that everyone MUST have will help you in just about all of these areas. Whether directly or indirectly there is one goal that can positively affect your finances, health and relationships.The goal that has to be a part of your life, especially in this day in age, is to get control of your FICO score. I don’t care how good or how bad your score currently is, you need education and you need a plan moving forward to improve your score.
Credit scores can be linked to all kinds of other things.Think about the stress that people have.A lot of this comes from worrying about your financial future.Relationships, how many divorces are caused because financial issues are a big part of the problem? Just about everyone has one or two financial goals; the most common are to get out of debt or create more wealth.Understanding your credit score and the options that are available to you will help you get out of debt.Having a better FICO score will allow you to pay less for just about everything you do.This then allows most people the monthly savings they need to begin investing, or to increase their available investing dollars monthly!
Learning the things to do, or not to do that will affect your FICO score is the first step that I want everyone to understand.By doing this, awareness is created.I am a strong believer that when people are aware of how things affect them they make different choices.No longer is it the time to stick our heads in the sand when it comes to credit and hope that things will be ok.If you are hoping your FICO score is good, I will tell you most likely, it isn’t.
The other most common reaction from people is to get angry or call the system stupid.Whether this is your belief or not, one thing I can promise you is that lenders don’t care.I don’t mean that to be mean, but it’s the truth.You are not going to change the current system which leaves you with two choices; get educated and reap the benefits or, call the system stupid or unfair and continue to be told “no” which means you pay more for everything you want or need.
The other reaction people employ is to believe it makes good financial sense to “exit the system”.This is a very strong belief by some very popular financial experts.I agree that not having debt can be a fantastic financial plan for people.But I believe this advice goes too far to an extreme, which will then take it over to the bad advice column.
If you do not have any credit there are two big problems that come up even if you don’t have any debt.The first, for most of us, is that at some point in time something will come up that we need that we cannot just pay cash for, then what do we do?The second problem is that there are things we have to have such as insurance.Most insurance carries factor your credit score into the equation to determine your premiums.So by exiting the system, you hurt your FICO score which makes you pay more for something you have to have.I don’t think any financial expert will ever tell you that paying more for something that you have to have makes financial sense, especially when you can easily avoid it!
Think twice about adding credit scoring education or credit score planning to your 2011 goals.You will be amazed about how many ways it can affect your life.Credit Score Planning is a term that we all need to add to our lives.
Even if you have an excellent FICO score, what most don’t understand is one small wrong move could plummet your score.Take some time and make this a priority in your life.Even if you don’t, lenders everywhere are doing it for you.Hopefully I have encouraged you to start addressing this three-digit number.
The last very important thing you need to understand is where you get education or advice.Most of the things you will hear, read, or find about FICO scores are unfortunately made up, misleading, or just flat out wrong.Be very careful who or what you listen to when it comes to something as important as this.Good luck with your Credit Scoring Planning in 2011.