Mature loans are loans that are not new. That’s kind of obvious, but there are several reasons why I bring this up. There are several levels of maturity and how they affect your score. Just like us as humans, we have levels of maturity when we crawl, when we walk, and when we use a cane to get around. We start out slow, get fast then slow down again. When we look at credit, the first year of a new loan is like crawling, go slow, don’t over spend, in fact, try to keep it clean from spending and absolutely no lates. After the 4th year, the account then matures, but it’s like being a teenager. It’s kind of mature, but not really. It’s mature enough to not cost you points but not mature enough to earn you points. This comes later when you have a lot more maturity under your belt. When an account has 7 years of maturity, then you are starting to earn points on your credit score. It’s a time when you are seeing your credit score rise if everything else is going fine. Now real maturity starts to happen when you have 10, 15, 20 or more years of maturity on your account and if you have more than one account with this maturity then you are seeing scores into the 800’s.

I have been told that to have a credit score of 850 you would have to have an account in good standing with high credit limit from consumer first and low, low balance for 49 years. It’s a good goal to aim for but anything over 760 in todays financial climate is great and will get you the lowest interest rates and insurance rates and the best loans available today.

Another great story to share with you folks! Cesar D.  started with us 10 months ago and we have raised his Equifax credit score 172 points. IT WENT FROM 542 TO 714!! Mind you this is with no positive tradelines reporting, just straight deletions.  His Experian score has been raised 111 points (501 to 612).  The TransUnion is a work in progress.  Monique is attacking that one for us.    (Just a sidenote: the Loan Officer is disappointed in our service because the middle score isn’t high enough to purchase a home yet.  She and I are going to have a TALK!)  The members are thrilled, that’s all that counts.

The difference between loans that are open and loans that are open with balances is pretty obvious. You have a loan with or without a balance. The credit bureaus scoring modules look at number of open loans with no real consequence unless is too many or too few. Too many is about 20 open and too few is none. However, there is also a problem with having too many loans with balances and that number seems to be around 8. We see credit reports drop in scores and have reason codes that pertain to having too many accounts with balances right around that number.

The secret is to keep just enough loans with balances in a number to do the most good and stay away from having too many or too few.

I saw a well dressed lady the other day at the check out and opened a binder with pages and pages of credit cards instant approval experian for her to choose from. I was astounded at the number of credit cards that she had and wondered just what her credit score could be. She couldn’t have that many cards unless she had a pretty good score, so she would have to pay them off each month to keep from losing her credit and losing the opportunity to get more cards. But I have to wonder, why have so many cards and complicate your life with all those bills and trying to decide which card to use and the threat of losing all those cards is pretty scary. The solution would be to have 2 or 3 good cards with limits 2 times higher than you would ever need. I suggest between $40,000 and $50,000. But, remember to never go over the 45% of that limit so that your debt to credit ratio remains as low as possible, which keeps your credit scores high. (See secret # 17-21)

Ok, so you think you are hotshot and can get whatever you want cause you still have plastic, still have checks or still have money burning in your pocket. When, sheesh, get a life. You can’t spend everything and expect the bills to be paid with your good looks. Creditors just don’t think you are that good looking. So, my friends… stop spending your dough. It’s called self-control and works really great in situations like this. In fact, the wealthy people have 5 savings plans that help them with their finances. There are addiction recovery groups or Over Spenders Anonymous that you can join to help get over this addiction. Didn’t think you had an addiction did you. Well, if you can’t control your spending then yes, you are out of control and there is an addiction. So, get some help.

You will discover that you are out of control when you have no money at the end of the month and still have bills. What’s the adage? I have more month at the end of my paycheck. There are lots of ways to cut spending and save some money. Some of us already have pinched all we can in every conceivable way and still don’t have enough. There is another to get spending in control. You could also get a part time job, ask for a raise or find a better paying job that will help you have the money to pay for the bills you have. Just be sure to not spend more until you get things in control. See # for a plan we have that will get you out of debt in 1/3^rd the time, get your credit scores into the mid 700’s and increase cash flow at the same time. It works, it’s amazing and it can change your financial future almost instantly.