Mike’s Money

• Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball, Moolanomy
• Inflation Adjusted Chart Of S&P 500, Trader’s Narrative
• 20 Reasons Why I Love the Recession, Steadfast Finances
• Why 401(k) Can Spell “Lousy Retirement Plan”, Mr. ToughMoneyLove

I started to learn more about credit score. After checking out Credit Karma per my previous post, I am happy to report that my score is 794. According to this FICO credit score, I’m in the best score range.  Very nice!

CK is really easy to use and I want to encourage you to check it out.

Because of my recent credit card problem, I was thinking about checking out my credit report and score.  I was looking at FreeCreditReport.com, but thank God I checked out my favorite blog before I signed up.  Apparently, FreeCreditReport.com is not free.  Is this a scam or what?  The name said free, but you’ll be signed up for program that costs you money!

Luckily, the article also told me how I can get my free credit score through Credit Karma, and free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com.

I talked about starting an emergency fund and opening a high yield savings account.  As I was poking around Moolanomy, I found his article on MoneyAisle.  MoneyAisle is a cool free tool that let you find the best CD rates and/or the best high yield savings rate.  Very cool if you ask me.

I’ll be playing around with it some more, but it looks like I’ll be starting an emergency fund very soon.

• Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), The Best Bond To Buy?, Moolanomy
• What does retirement mean to you?, Done To Zen
• Is it time to refinance?, Frugalize
• Sometimes You HAVE to Ignore the Right thing to do! I Canceled my Bank of America Credit Card Today, My Journey to Millions
• Hummer drivers get the most traffic tickets, Clever Dude

Just got off the phone with my credit card company — former credit card company.  I haven’t used the card for a while and made a charge early last month.  Apparently, it was too close to the payment date and they didn’t issue a statement in December.  Now, they said I am delinquent.  I know credit score is very important, especially for someone my age; so I don’t need a company that can issue a proper statement to ruin my credit.

I’ll be looking for an new card and will probably take advantage of a 0% APR balance transfer.  I found a nice list of credit cards that offer 0% APR balance transfer here, and hopefully will get this over with soon.  In the mean time, I am nicked with a late fee and a finance charge.  Not cool, considering I didn’t even get a statement.

Also found some neat ideas on how to destroy unwanted credit cards.

I have been doing some research about starting an emergency fund.  Basically, an emergency fund is money that I’ll be setting aside so that I have money in case I lose my job or to take care of unanticipated events.  Right now I only have a few hundreds in my savings account, but I am hoping to get to a thousand mark by the Summer.  I know a thousand is not much, but that’s all I think I can manage for now.

According to a blog I have been reading, I will also be opening a high yield savings account to keep my emergency fund.  This way I can earn some interest while keeping my money accessible.