Use of credit
In studying the issues of single women my mother learned that getting credit was a problem. Consequently she checked her own credit score and was astonished to learn she was not considered a good risk, because she had never borrowed anything. The advice she got was to buy something on credit and pay it off over time, long enough to show she could pay consistently. She got a credit card, bought something, and carefully wrote out a check every month until it was paid off. She advised me that I would need a line of credit but that I shouldn’t get a credit card until I had income enough to pay back whatever I borrowed in full.
I have a laissez-faire attitude towards budgeting; close is usually good enough, with cushion. I had a checking account in college but only balanced my checkbook twice a year. This was when all the records were on paper and had to be totted up with pencil and paper or with a cheap solar calculator. I didn’t spend much, and when my father sent money to me at college I deposited it and let it set there until needed. I worked in the summers at a restaurant. My main entertainment was reading books and listening to music on cassette tape. I recorded music off the radio for free, and got books from the library.
Partway through my second semester at college, I received a credit card application in the mail. I was engaged to be married, and while I wasn’t working at school, I knew a credit card would be a good thing to have eventually. So I applied and was accepted. By the time the physical card arrived in the mail, I had changed my mind. I cut up the card without using it.
Fast forward two or three years: I was married, with a toddler and expecting our second child. My husband had a job, but due to his past behavior, a terrible credit score. The company who offered me a credit card tracked me down and sent me a letter. “Because you have been such a responsible person, we’re raising your credit limit.” Oh! I had completely forgotten about that card. My husband was overjoyed. He persuaded me to accept the raised credit limit and add him to my account. So we did. For a while we paid promptly and didn’t use it all that much.
Now, my husband did all our finances. I insisted on knowing what was going on, but I was caring for infants and the house. He wanted to write out the paper checks for bills, so I let him. He learned, again, to use credit responsibly, mostly. But we had five children in ten years; he tried desperately to provide for us. When his employer fired him in 2001, we struggled.
We contacted that credit card company, our mortgage company, and our other creditors. One or two worked with us, but the credit card company and the mortgage company refused to budge. So we filed for bankruptcy. Suddenly they wanted to give us more time, lower payments, whatever we needed to keep paying a little. But it was too late. We let that house go into foreclosure and we moved out of state.
Less than six months after we moved, credit card offers started arriving. Sometimes we received three or four a day. I felt disgusted. We got out from under a huge debt not because we did not want to pay it, but because we could not. And they wanted to throw money at us in an effort to re-enslave us!
