opportunity vs. threats

With these new and improved credit scores, the credit card offers have just been pouring in at the apartment. In case you didn’t get to see our last blog or know already, Kiara’s credit score jumped over 100 points and Jaclyn’s increased 70 points! Isn’t that just crazy?! It truly is crazy but so awesome! Nevertheless, with rejuvenated credit comes more offers than your mind or shredder can handle!

Now there are some pretty great opportunities that you can take when you decide to start a new credit card. Whether it be that great 0% interest rate for a limited time that most offer, a cash back incentive, or even a higher credit limit because they no longer see you as a liability due to your not so pretty credit, they figure that once your credit score has gone up, you are more likely to not only pay your debt but to pay it on time. 

With great responsibility come greater threats. The biggest threat for us would be the backsliding of it all. You get your new cards and you get into a good rhythm at first by buying things and then paying it off but what happens when you start letting it get out of control. You go from charging those main things to charging anything that you can think of. Before you know it, you are hurting your credit score and your bank account.

So here’s our plan to keep on top of the cards that we have. We will be taking a vacation this coming May and we plan to use a specific credit card in order to pay for our flights and our rental car at least. Our plan is to either set up a savings account and save prior to going or to make sure that we have the allotted amount in our checking in order to avoid and ridiculous interest payments or just getting behind on payments in general. We are also doing this because this card has an awesome cash back incentive.

We aren’t saying that people should not have credit cards but we are saying that you need to use them responsibly. Make sure that you are paying the bill each month or that you have a budget set up that you can use to pay off the things that you are shopping for like groceries, gas, clothing, etc. It will not only keep your accounts happy but also keep that credit score beautiful!