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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

What the Hell?

So I'm watching today's Oprah, its about the recession and people that are in debt. Right now, she's talking to people that are $90k in debt and have 29 freaking credit cards.

Ok America, what the hell is wrong with this picture? I am 28 years old, I've done pretty well for myself over the past 6 years since I graduated college. But here's the kicker.... I have never been able to get a credit card. People that are in debt, get credit cards. People like me, that never had a credit card, no student loans, no car loans, no debt.... guess what... no credit for you. You're undesirable... You have insufficient credit history. People, I've been turned down for a Victoria Secret card.

Brent, my financial planner that he is, has been helping me try to build credit. My mom co-signed for my car loan, I even took out a small loan and paid it back over a 2 period of time just purely to generate some credit. Its been tough. I've had to buy furniture out right, we're talking a couple thousand bucks. I had to pay double deposits for things. Its totally sucked people. Luckily, my 1st job out of college I had a company car so all my bills were paid out of my 1st paycheck of the month. My 2nd job, I got large quarterly bonuses that I could save for those large purchases. And now, I get a monthly commission.

I will say over the past couple years I've slowly built some credit. I got a Banana Republic card and I was thrilled when I was able to get a Sears card to buy my elliptical machine with. But that's it. (I recently closed the Sears card.)

But the best thing about getting married was truly getting credit. My husband Brent has fabulous credit, and he actually put me on one of his credit cards for wedding purchases. And I'm now paying it off.


So here's my main question, and a major discussion that Brent and I had over dinner this past weekend.... how did it get THIS bad. What were people thinking.... especially people that bought houses they could never afford, getting 20 credit cards, buying new cars.... I'm just so confused....

Now they are saying that getting loans for the next couple of years is going to be extremely tough. Brent and I are planning on buying a house when we move to NC. This all makes me nervous, luckily by that time we should have saved a healthy down payment but we will also have a VA loan if we need it.

2 comments:

Blue-Eyed Bride said...

the lenders are crazy. these people are totally irresponsible and just obsessed with THINGS. i have credit cards and i feel like i'm constantly paying them off. and i only have 2 credit cards! fortunately, my husband and i are smart about it and we're able to live within our means. it's better not to have a credit card, i think!

Muffy said...

How DID it get so bad?? That's terrible about you not being able to get credit! Poor thing!

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