This weekend I had a conversation with well educated attorney, probably around 65 years old, she asked me, “How are you doing in this economy? What do you do?” I responded, “I’m in education and finance; we sell products on saving money and specifically, how to raise your credit score to reduce your monthly payments.” She said, “Oh yeah, I understand all about credit. That is one problem I don’t have to deal with.” She continued by saying, “I only have one American Express card and that’s all I use.” I said, “Well statistically speaking, if you have one credit card it’s going to hurt your credit score.” She said, “I do know that, in fact, I had 11 cards, and I closed them all down.” My response, “Well, statistically speaking when you close down your accounts it will hurt your credit score.” She said, “I did know that, but it’s not a problem for me because I don’t need credit.” From there, I let the conversation die. The bottom line, I hear this every single day. Every day, I hear that, “I’m different.” In reality, if you are living in America, we are all the same when it comes to your credit score. Even though this woman thinks she “doesn’t need credit,” she does and let me explain. Does she have car insurance? Yes, and that could be impacted because of your credit score. Does she have a mortgage? Most likely, and that WILL be impacted by her credit score. Does she have kids? Yes, she had three of them. Most likely, her kids don’t have her resources and if she is teaching her kids this information; they are starting down the wrong path. This woman thinks that she doesn’t have problems, just like the 100M Americans who don’t think they have a problem.
