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Well not technically, she gets to tweak her marketing of her “Fico kit” to improve credit scores. Have this be your warning that there are people out there saying they can do things with your credit that they cannot do.

“Under a proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit against the Fair Isaac Corporation and Equifax, which sell products to consumers who want to gauge how fondly lenders will view them, there are new limits on the assertions these products can make about their ability to raise people’s credit profiles.

Ms. Orman sells “Suze Orman’s Fico Kit” on both her Web site and one run by Fair Isaac. Although she was not a defendant in the lawsuit, her kit was among 156 products that came under fire as potentially violating the Credit Repair Organizations Act, a law designed to control fly-by-night credit-repair agencies.” - In the NY Times

Noone can instantly repair your credit. Not even the hosts of QVC and MSNBC shows or best selling authors. There are steps that you can take to improve your score and maintain it, but sometimes you are just stuck waiting for time to elapse.

For more information on this lawsuit settlement visit the settlement website by clicking here.

The AP is reporting that blacks have been charged higher auto loan rates than other auto buyers. From the article, blacks paid a typical auto loan rate of 7% for new cards compared with 5% of white people.

See the article here at la.com - Auto loan rates higher for blacks?

I’m not sure what the color of your skin has to do with whether or not you are risk to a lender. But like it says in the article, auto dealers have some control of the rate based on the risk. Of course, they aren’t going to discuss the rate with the customer. Most auto dealers won’t even admit that they have the option of adjusting the rate with the lender. The dealer can always make it go higher to make the risk look good to the lender, but I’m sure there is a buffer to how much they would lower at it. Remember, a lender is the business of making money and the dealership is in the middle of trying to sell the car to you while getting their kickback from the bank.

Consider saving a huge down payment if you decide to make a new car purchase. If your car is on the fritz, get a used car that you can afford and keep the number of payments. In other words, don’t opt for the 5 year loan to make your car payments affordable - buy a car that works with your budget, not the other way around.

To keep a nice credit profile, you have to have credit. It’s a necessary sin, but one that you can control. It is good to have a few accounts open in good standing, and a lot of closed accounts that are closed but paid off in full. There’s no concrete number, but one thing for sure is that the credit bureaus calculate your total debt vs your income vs what risk other people are already taking on you and how that’s working out for them. So let’s say you have 5 credit cards and you want to get rid of some or all. Assuming that you have paid off all the balances, you do not want to close all 5 accounts at the same time. What is recommended by some credit organizations is to close your newest one first, then wait 6 months and close the next one, and continue down that path until you have all the cards that you want. Expect your credit score to lower by closing accounts, but by staggering the time that you close the accounts, you are giving your good credit history time to recover.

kiplinger.com agrees:

“And you’re right to keep old accounts open if they’re in good standing. A closed account “isn’t quite as meaningful as an open account in predicting risk,” says Maxine Sweet, of the credit bureau Experian, but it’s still a positive. Even better, says Sweet, is to manage your current accounts well by not missing payments and keeping your balances well under your credit limit.” See Closing Credit Accounts @ kiplinger.com

MSN Money agrees as well:

“No, no, no. For the umpteenth time: Closing accounts can never help your credit score, and may hurt it.
Every time I write this, I get more e-mail from people who say their mortgage lenders told them exactly the opposite. It’s true that having too many open accounts can hurt your score. But once you’ve opened the accounts, you’ve done the damage. You can’t repair it by shutting the account, and you may actually make things worse.” - MSN Money’s 4 credit scoring myths

They go a little farther than what I agree with. If you have an account open that is costing you money every month to maintain (ie: “monthly maintenance fees”) if you don’t think you need the card or are tempted by the available balance - CLOSE IT. A maxed out credit card balance or an account that you are paying for is a risk you shouldn’t take for a bank to use to risk consideration for possible NEW credit. I mean, that’s what the point of a credit score is - your number equals the risk you are to the lender not getting their money back.

If you are hunting for something to get rid of, get the rid of the newest ones. If you can’t afford to maintain a card, get rid of it. A maxed out card or a bunch of late payments is going to hurt worse than a closed account. So maintain a happy balance and you’ll be set.

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Welcome to wealthjump.com. This site will contain information on finances, ranging from how to improve your credit score to budgeting theories to how to buy your first house. I’ll be inviting multiple authors to come in and share their experience whether from academia or just past mistakes that have since been rectified. I think there’s a lot to be said about consulting with people in the financial industry, but at the end of the day, if you can figure it out on your own that money can be well spent on paying down your debt, saving for a major purchase, or going on a *controlled* spending frenzy for that latest gadget.

There’s nothing wrong with being in debt. There’s nothing wrong with needing more money in savings. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Let’s face it, everyone has or had debt of some kind. But now is your chance to take control of your bank account whether you are 16 and working part time, or 50 years old preparing for retirement. Grasp the information, do your research and work yourself out of the bank controlled world that we all live in. This site isn’t about getting rich quick. There won’t be any ebooks with all the secrets to boosting your credit score, which is either a lie or completely illegal. This site is about realizing what you are doing with your money, pointing out the buzzwords that are good and bad and sharing the experience of either making it or breaking it.

From a recent survey by Scott Trade (see full report here: Scott Trade’s Survey on Baby Boomers)

“With over 78.2 million Baby Boomers, this aging population may soon find itself in dire straits. According to Scottrade’s 2007 American Retirement Study:

- 65 percent believe they have not saved enough for retirement
- 29 percent have saved less than $25,000 for retirement
- 23 percent of Boomers say they will never be able to retire and not need to earn an income
- 41 percent will have to keep working during retirement
”

That’s the baby boomers, which will be living off of social security and continuing to work. The majority of Americans are not saving any money - living paycheck to paycheck. One of the goals for this site is to show you how to get out of debt, get control of your spending, and put a little in savings no matter if you are working off of tips or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

If you have questions, or topics that you would like to see discussed here. Send us an email at info@wealthjump.com

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