Lesson Learned

This week we applied for a credit card for the company and couldn't get one. Apparently we had too many lines of credit opened. We were a little perplexed by this and maybe we're just dumb but we found out something we didn't know about credit. Normally I wouldn't be so open about sharing this somewhat private information on the world wide web....but I'm hoping this helps someone else out:

Jake went online to a credit bureau company (Experian or something like that??) and looked up our report for free to figure out what the problem was. What we found out was that most of our credit lines that are open are school loans. No biggie. But there were a few on there that shouldn't have been and stopped us from being approved even though our credit score is well into the 700s (the highest is an 850, they don't typically exceed 825). One example of an open credit line that shouldn't have been there was from Gordon's Jewelers (my engagement ring). When Jake bought it, he paid for it in full that day. This account should have been closed 5 years ago. In fact, all of our open accounts were and are in good standing! These companies like to keep the account open for ten years. What we didn't know was that you must call these companies and close the account yourself. Otherwise they stay open. Since we have closed those accounts everything is all better. Another thing we learned is that you can go to optoutprescreen.com and get yourself off of the lists that send you credit card offers. They send those to after they've checked your score. Get off of those lists!!! They aren't good to be on!! It cuts your score down, no fault of your own and it's a tragic waste of money and paper. Just wanted to share that in case we weren't the only uneducated when it comes to that stuff. Hope it helps someone!!

TODAY'S TRAINING:

5K 29:00

(I'd like to run the Spring it Forward 5k in 25:00 or less.....10 days from now)