What I Did Wrong, And What I'm Doing Right: A Confession That I Almost Didn't Post Because My Mother Reads This

Recently, I had to apply for a "travel" credit card for my job. I work for the government, and when you travel for them, they like you to have a credit card dedicated to your expenses. They pay for it, they pay it off, all you have to do is charge your dinner and hotel expenses to it. Sounds great, right?

I was denied because of a low credit score.

I know I screwed up back in my early 20's. The first thing I did when I got to college was fall for a "student" credit card. At the time, our grades weren't available online, so I would call a 1-800 number. In order to pay for this, the school had ads that you had to listen to before you could get your grades. One of these ads was for a credit card.

At the time, the only credit I had was for a car loan less than two years old.
I told myself I needed to build credit.
I promised myself that I would be responsible.

Less than two years later, my card had been maxed out and I had more fees than I could shake a stick at. So what did I do?
I paid the minimum balance and got another credit card.

Paying the minimum balance doesn't get you anywhere when you have 20% interest rates and $25 over limit fees adding on every month. But in a matter of a year or two, I had two maxed out credit cards.
Wait - make that three. A furniture company was stupid enough to let me have a store card to buy the bed I thought I just HAD to have. That one I actually paid off, with no fees tacked on - although I didn't do it soon enough to take advantage of the "no interest for 12 months" deal I had signed on for.

There were some scary phone calls - one very scary, in which the company told me I had 8 days to pay off the balance or I would need an attorney. I was a waitress, so I worked 8 doubles in a row and made the money.

Did I turn around and do the same thing for the other card? If only I had thought that far ahead.

Fast forward to my first year of graduate school. I was 26, I was dating The Professor, and things were getting serious. We were talking marriage. We were smart enough to also start talking about money.

And I felt - yes, I'll say it - ashamed of my credit. He had excellent credit. Not a lot in savings, but he had just bought a house with no problems. No questions asked that he didn't want to answer. Me? I was on my third car loan in ten years, and still had several thousands of dollars in credit card debt. Oh, and I was closing in on what would become more than $80,000 in student loans. I was supposed to be a responsible adult by that point in my life. I felt like I was 19.

I vowed to myself and to him that I would pay off every cent of credit card debt before we got married. Not a penny of our wedding OR honeymoon would go on credit. I cancelled my last card - I couldn't use it, didn't want to use it, and didn't trust myself to use it. He didn't make an issue of it - in fact, he was surprised by my vehemence, but I didn't want to be responsible for dragging him down simply because he had been smart enough (she says, modestly) to fall in love with me.

I didn't make it - I paid off the last credit card 6 weeks after our wedding. But the wedding - and the honeymoon - was paid for in cash.

Last year, I tentatively stepped into the credit pond again. I religiously pay it off every two weeks when I get paid. I started actually saving money - and yes, it took me until I was 29 years old to realize that having some cash socked away was probably a smart move. I opened a high-yield savings account. I started making extra payments on my car. I started dreaming of paying off my student loans - the monthly payment is higher than our mortgage - in five years instead of ten. I started using the free credit reports three times a year to keep an eye on things.

I started feeling good about the whole "credit"thing again.

Then today, I found out that my bad credit history is still out there, hurting me. I hated having to hear from the administration at work that I had been denied credit that no one else there has been denied.

This post is going to be my motivation. Among other things, we want to buy a new house when The Beloved Stepson graduates from college in 6 years.

My credit will NOT be the reason that doesn't happen.