Credit 911: Secrets and Strategies to Saving Your Financial Life

CHAPTER 11

Saving Your Financial Life

There has been a lot of doom and gloom in this book, out of necessity. I have had to talk about things you might not have known about, but that affect you nonetheless. Worse still, I may have put words before you revealing truths you already knew but were afraid to confront. If that’s the case, you are not alone.

Let me say it again: You are not alone.

In the United States, the most prosperous country in the world and perhaps in history, we face a paradox. We are largely a financially illiterate population. So many people fail financially every year, and for many reasons. Most common among these are larger systemic failures in our families and schools. As a country, we do not educate our children and students in financial matters. Many kids coming out of high school do not know anything about checking accounts, credit cards, or financial planning. If they know anything, it is that when they go away to college, Dad and Mom are going to give them their own credit card. Cool.

There is little value in assigning blame. It’s bad enough when someone’s credit is destroyed, when they marry the wrong person, or when they go through divorce, foreclosure, or bankruptcy. To blame someone else is a way of avoiding responsibility, but to blame yourself is equally nonproductive. The point is: Now you need to change how things were in the past. You need to rebuild your credit, fix the problems and habits that contributed to the problem, and begin all over ...