Yes, I am proud of this

[susandennis]

When I was a young adult, credit cards were not as ubiquitous as they are today.  Department stores (yes, there were still department stores) issued charge-a-plates.  They were cardboard cards with physical metal plates with your info on raised letters.  Then they went to charge cards for that store only.  Then Master Card and Visa hit the street and the world of credit changed.

I was young and had a job and thought handing plastic over and getting goods was just dandy.  So I did. A lot.  And managed to rack up quite the debt.  My credit never really got horrible but it was always borderline enough to make getting a car loan dicey, for instance.

And then I woke up.  And realized that no husband or children were going to take care of me in my dotage and if I didn't get a grip, I'd be a bag lady with no bad credit hanging around the payday loan office.  I was already 40 years old.  But I buckled down and knuckled down and changed my wanton ways and now I am a spendthrift again but this time with the funds to do it.

This morning I got my Discover card statement.  They have started putting your FICO score on your Discover bill.  My FICO score is 824. I'm pretty proud of that.

The top score is 850 and now I'm thinking what can I do to get those last 26 points...  I've turned into an over achiever in my old age. And now I'm annoying even me.

Comments

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

824 is doing very well!

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

I'm in the 700s which kind of surprises me. I've had a Sears card since about 1989 but it became a Mastercard like 10 years ago.

[susandennis]

700s is excellent! When I was your age, I would have killed for 700s! I was a slow learner.

[matrixmann]

That's why I don't share an appreciation for these plastic cards (besides that all your purchases are trackable). You take them out too quickly and before you start to notice rapidly you've gotten rid of a few ten or hundred bugs. If you handed the money out in bills, it would have struck your eye anytime.
And by the way, these cards are what they're named after: credit cards.
They hand out cash to you which you physically don't have.
So anytime the cash spent is going to have to be returned by you.

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

When I worked in a Department Store (the Bon Marche!) I recall having some customers who had charge accounts with the store for such a long time that they had those cardboard cards. The women's cards would often say things like Mrs. John Smith.

[susandennis]

I used to tease my mother by calling her Mrs. William since that's what was on her charge-a-plate. (I actually only did that once - once I saw her level of pissed off-edness.) I still have one from a long since closed department store in Winston-Salem (where I grew up) and it says Miss Susan Dennis. Wonder where that is?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Wow, we're really close! I'm 821. I did the same thing as you, wondering how I could get those last points for a perfect score...

[susandennis]

If you figure it out, share!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Will do!

I missed a BIG opportunity. I bought a new car a year back and paid bought it outright, without any kind of loan. I should have gotten a short loan and paid it off all at once. Blah!