Ok, in all actuality, everyone’s credit report is important. There are times, though when it is in the back of our minds and not putting too much of a direct impact on anything we are currently dealing with from day to day.

But, I am getting ready to buy a house. On my own. For the first time. All of the homes I owned with my ex during my marriage were mortgaged in his name, so this is the first time that my credit report will have to stand alone to make a big financial venture work for me.

So, right now my credit report is VERY important to me. And, it is not without some glitches, I must add. There is a medical bill on there from a company that failed to bill me for more than a year after I was in the hospital. On policy, my insurance company refused to pay it. I mean, it had been OVER a year that they waited to try and bill for it. Their attorney went after me and I settled. I have the letter form the courts saying the issue is settled, but there is sits on my credit report. On no fault of my own.

And then there is the money one phone company admits we never owed them, but that they keep selling to various collection agencies. I should not have to suffer for the poor communication going on in their company. Obviously, not all companies are using services like NCO Financial Systems to ensure they get things right the first time. The phone company I mentioned above might want to look into getting some help in that respect.

I do not want to be turned down for a mortgage due to things that were not my fault, false reports to my credit essentially. Fortunately, I have the right to see my credit reports and to dispute outdated or incorrect information that is showing on the reports. I can even work with an attorney to file a claim against a reporting agency that has published false information.

I already know where I want to buy and I have been watching the listings. I’m not going to let a couple of incorrect items on my credit reports get in my way now.

I just faxed out another batch of faxed resumes to schools that have job openings. I am pondering one other position, but the thing that is stopping me is that it would involve me making home visits and using my own car.

I have two cars, but I can only afford the car insurance on one of them, so I have the little gas-efficient one sitting undriven. I use the van right now, because it has much better crash test ratings and most of my driving involved having my daughter in the vehicle.

However, if I were to use a car for a job, I would want to use the car that gets better gas mileage and that means finding a way to afford insuring both vehicles. Such a double edged sword, yes? I called around about a year ago to see if I could swing both cars, but the prices were insane. I guess I would just have to look a little harder. There has got to be someone out there willing to insure the little car for liability only at a good price. I mean, I assume there is.

It’s just a fact.

Unemployment rates are up. Gas, food, and housing costs are skyrocketing. And now we are hearing about the potential taxpayer burden that might come our way with the bailout of Freddie Mac and the like. It’s not a good time to try to squeeze a full dollar out of a dollar, you know?

It’s no small wonder that almost every commercial break on radio and television seems to have a commercial about credit counseling. People are using credit more and in more creative ways. We’re quite literally juggling a pile of creditors just to stay afloat in some cases.

Credit counseling does not have to entail massive refinancing and consolidation, though it sometimes does. Often, people just need tips on how to pay down debt and keep things running tightly. After my divorce, I was left with a little pile of debts from unpaid bills I did not realize had even been in solely my name. First off, it taught me to never again reply on letting just one person handle all of the money issue. Also, it started me on my little quest to learn more about debt negotiation. I picked up some fantastic tips in the Bills.com site and then went from there. I learned that negotiation is process and there is often a lot of back and forth communication before both parties are happy with the outcome. I learned to be patient, take my time, and never lose my cool.

Money is a necessary evil. We all know that. And with every rough patch on our own personal financial road, we become just a little bit closer to being experts in making it work for us.

…or these days, a dollar a day. Either way, the point is that we need to be putting money into a savings account or something similar as often as possible. I have cut out more luxuries than I can count on my fingers in the last couple years in favor of saving as much money as possible. I have a goal, and that goal is to one day have an easy down payment on a house for me and my daughter.

I came out of my divorce with a lot less than I had imagined. Somehow, my ex had spent a lion’s share of our savings, proved to the courts that he had no retirement in place (??) and thus far has done everything possible to delay putting out house on the market. So, it is just me, myself and I – and a will to make my financial situation as uncomplicated as I can.

I immediately made an effort to consolidate debt by working with creditors to offer settlements on some of the more oddball debts my ex managed to have in my name over the years. I suppose when you are married, you don’t think twice about just having your name on a loan, credit card, or even a utility. In my case, it turned out to come back and bite me in the end.

As I work through that, I am moving quite quickly back into my old ways when it comes to money. I am frugal by nature, pay all of my bills on time or early, and finance things as little as possible. I already feel more free financially and my savings account thanks me.

My daughter is 5. She has moved recently into different musical tastes. She is no longer interested in seeing Laurie Berkner or The Wiggles in concert. “Oh, yuck!” she exclaimed.

Nope, she recently informed me she wants to see The Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus in concert.

*sigh*

Unless you have been living in the back woods without electricity lately, you know all about the last Miley Cyrus tour, the expense of the tickets and how in-demand they were. Tickets were expensive to begin with, but once they got bought up by bulk resellers and scalpers, they become positively unaffordable.

The fan base for Miley Cyrus is young girls. Their parents are the ones forking over the dough for the tickets. And, there is obviously disposable income left in this society, or entertainers would not be able to demand and get such high prices.

I had to tell my daughter I could not afford for her to see Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers in concert. She is 5. Her abstract reasoning has not kicked in yet. She just could not understand.

And now I am seeing how Cyrus is celebrating her 16th birthday at Disneyland out in California and tickets to the party will be a mere $250.

What?

They go on sale August 30 and the event is expected to sell out quickly.

Don’t people have food and gas to buy?

I think I mentioned that last month I hit my neighbor’s car. He used to park across from my driveway and it was always a tight fit for me to get out into the street. One day I had both kids in the car with me and misjudged things by a couple of inched and I hit the back panel of his Nissan Z.

My insurance company took care of things for me within minutes and the neighbor is absolutely not upset with me. However, I keep watching my bill to see if my rates increase,. In the meantime, I have been quietly shopping around using auto insurance online quote systems at other companies – just to see what my options are if I need to change. Plus, I really do want to eventually put my second car back on my policy.

If anyone has a great experience with a car insurance company, let me know. Real experiences only, please! I’m not looking for a lot of comment spam from people who are just looking to have their awkwardly worded keywords linked in a comment on my blog.

It happened to me. Back in the summer of 2005 I got a call from my bank to tell me that an internal “alarm” had been triggered due to a high number of checks being cashed against my account within a three-day period.

It turns out that someone has my bank account information, social security number, and other personal information. A woman had a driver’s license from another state made up with my name and information, but her photograph. She used it to cash a series of high dollar amount checks against my checking account. The checks had been written from someone’s closed account – probably on checks that had been discarded at some point.

Now, in the end it looked like it may have been an inside job. My bank covered all of the losses, but that did not save me from having to file police reports and credit alerts; and I spent hours cancelling credit cards. It was insane and anxiety-ridden.

My point is that identity theft can happen to you. It happened to me and I am very careful about documents and personal information.

When the whole thing happened to me, numerous friends e-mailed me the link to that Free Credit Report.com site. I guess all of the advertising had made them think it was my first line of defense. The problem is that I am one savvy shopper and the first thing that occurred to me is that FreeCreditReport.com is not actually free.

Although everyone is indeed entitled to a free credit report annually, you don’t have to use that particular website to get it. (Use AnnualCreditReport.com instead.) Freecreditreport.com is actually owned by one of the three credit reporting agencies – Experian – and they are pushing their fee-based credit monitoring services.

Bob Sullivan wrote an excellent article on the matter for MSNBC and I urge you to check it out.

If you are looking at credit report monitoring, that is another issue. Monitoring services can be a fantastic help and the protection can be worth its weight in gold. Lifelock is far less expensive to use than the above-mentioned company, and they guarantee their services up to a million bucks. My favorite part of their program is that they will also monitor for uses of my daughter’s name or personal information.

We all have our own little quirky ways of saving money. Some are quirkier than others. I thought I would make a little list of ways I regularly save pennies here and there so that my budget goes a little farther from month to month.

Ten ways I save pennies:

1. My dentist is super generous with toothpaste and floss samples, not to mention toothbrushes. I have not bought any of those items in at least a year and we always have plenty.
2. See a penny, pick it up…and after 99 more you’ll have a buck. That’s what I’ve taught my daughter. When we see loose change on the ground, we pick it up – and then give it a good rinse – and put it in a little jar we have in the bedroom closet.
3. Reuse Ziploc bags. I am astounded at how many people do not reuse Ziplocs. Unless I’ve had meat in the bag, I turn it inside out, give it a good wash, let it dry and use it again, …and again and again.
4. Shop the loss leaders. Nearly every week in all of the grocery store ads, there are a few items that are so cheap they are almost priced at a loss of profit for the store. Those are called loss leaders. They are specifically aimed at getting you in the store so you will do all your shopping for the week while you are in there. So, make note of when I will pass each store through the natural course of my weekly errands, run in for the loss leaders, and get out. I don’t stay to be tempted with impulse items.
5. I wash every thing I can in cold water when doing the laundry. I save a little by not using water that had to be heated and my darks and colors love me for it.
6. No convenient snack packs. It is SO tempting to pick up little individual serving packs of chips, cookies, juice, and such for my daughter’s school lunches. However, when I just buy a regular pack or Oreos or bag of Cheetos and pack a serving in a little sandwich bags I save SO MUCH money. I try and use a thermos too, even though my daughter adores those Capri Sun packets.
7. Look at tags BEFORE you buy. I avoid clothes that need dry cleaned. When I was married, my ex’s parents owned a dry cleaning chain, so it was like paradise to have anything we wanted dry cleaned for free. Now, I just buy clothes we can wash right here at home.
8. OK, I admit it – I am one of those people who bring my own snacks to the movies. I even have a special purse. It’s a very cool Kenneth Cole that is nice and tall and happens to be made out of a dull vinyl, so it can be wiped clean. We take our own candy bars, chips and even sodas.
9. Kids eat free. When my daughter and I do take the time to go out to eat, we try and plan around a handful of local restaurants that have nights that kids eat free. I particularly like to go to Cody’s Original Roadhouse on a Monday or Tuesday during Early Bird Pricing. I get my meal cheap, my daughter eats free, and we love the salad.
10. Learn to love your pressure cooker. When I use my pressure cooker I can buy less expensive cuts of very lean meat and it comes out flavorful and so tender it falls apart. Plus, dinner is done a lot faster.

Of course, these are all small ways to save money. They can only help so much if you have run up a lot of debt. Personally, I try to by as much as possible with money I already have, thus avoiding debt as often as possible. Still, I went through a time after my divorce where I needed Debt help and turned to tips on Debt consolidation.

As America creeps closer and closer to a very dangerous financial landscape, more and more people find themselves overwhelmed with debt and in great need of Debt relief. Often, the wisest move is to find a way to bundle things all together and Consolidate debt. A good place to start is Bills.com, where they have a huge amount of articles and tips to get you started on understanding and paying down debt.

A couple of years ago, I was rear-ended at a red light by another driver when we were on the way home from the airport at night. We had the repairs made to my van and every thing looks OK, but the fact remains that if I want to sell my van there is now an accident report attached to my vehicle and that does nothing but take down the overall value of my vehicle.

The accident was not my fault, but I have to carry the burden of lower value on my own.

Or so I thought. It turns out that you can re-coup the diminished value of your vehicle up to four years after a car accident. I’m looking at the website for Advocate Auto Claims and they offer a free diminished value estimate. Since the accident happened within the last four year, I am allowed by state law to collect on the value loss of my van.

I’d wager that’s not something most people know about.

We have not had a massive hurricane in Florida in years. On top of that, home prices have gone down – WAY down! Despite all of that, State Farm) currently Florida’s largest private property insurer) has filed a request with the Office of Insurance Regulations requesting a rate hike that would average 47.1%

Are you kidding me?

The insurance company says they are requesting the rate change simply so they can afford to stay in the market. But, as I pointed out – there have been no massive weather disasters of late. Homes cost less and need less coverage. Nonetheless, State Farm wants us to believe they cannot stay in business here in Florida unless they raise rates almost 50%?

There were computer models that predicted that 2006 and 2007 would be record years for catastrophic storms and hurricanes. Insurance companies immediately responded by hiking prices in preparation However, the storms never came. Let State Farm, and other insurance companies, operate off the price increases they have ALREADY applied.

This is sometimes a technique some insurance companies use to get their current poly holders to drop policies. That way they can say they have offered the coverage to home owners and still get away with mostly just covering car and life insurance here in Florida – something often referred to as “cherry picking”.

And, while I am at it – I take offense that insurance companies want me to take up the slack in a shared risk with homeowners who make a personal choice to live on the beach or in a high-risk flood zone. What good is it doing me to live inland, in a less risky area?

You are not fooling anyone, State Farm. We know you are looking at record profits. We know that infernally you are not operating independently in Florida. We know that the high rates here are funding your upper level employee’s pockets with nice bonuses and pay increases.

Well, at least there appears to be one good thing coming form the bad economy here in the United States. It seems to be keeping more of our men home at night.

Strip club owners are reporting a downturn in business. The regrettably famous Mons Venus club here in Tampa is down 25 percent, that according to owner Joe Redner.

Redner also says that the bad economy is leading more women to give stripping a go. So, does that mean it is sort of like a couple of years ago when the real estate mushroomed and we had 9 Realtors living on every block?

*shudder*

I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with every third person I know taking up pole dancing.

All I know is that if the financial pinch people feel is keeping the men at home and away from spending cash on booze and strippers, that’s a good thing. Maybe the divorce rate will go down.

Well, that is unless now the women aren’t home at night because they are out stripping.

Ponder that one.

I took the Financially Fit quiz over at Bills IQ and I scored a “B”. I suppose that’s OK, but at the end I was told I definitely need to have a more recent look at my credit score and credit report. I have not done that since I had an issue with identity theft three years ago.

Back then, I had pretty good credit. Being married to my ex had taken the score down a little bit, since his financial habits were not as structured as mine. I am working to rectify that now, but I have one pesky collector who has been chasing me for eight years. It is from Verizon from back at the beginning of my marriage. We closed an account and although we had fulfilled the contract, the company keeps trying to tell us we have penalty fees to pay. We have spared with probably a dozen collection agencies and now I am on my own, since I’m divorced and the bill was in my own name. Bad move on my part, I suppose – having the bill in my name. Debt relief is not a huge issue for me, but I want to be educated.

Anyway, just going through the quiz questions showed me some of the ways I could be my finances more under control. I have a budget in my head, but I have never sat and worked up a REAL budget. I should have a more firm number when it comes to what I can spend monthly to eat out or go to movies or buy clothes for me and my daughter. My investments could surely be updated, and I need to start contributing to my IRA again. Those are just a few things that I need to get on top of soon.

Also, although I am saving for a down payment on a home, the quiz results told me that I need to look at what I can afford NOW, so that I know how much to save and how long it will take. That’s a valid point and I need to get some input from someone in the know, based on what I expect to be making soon as a teacher.

I was reminded about the pre-paid college plan we purchased here in Florida after my daughter was born. That helped me feel better about her tuition, but I still need to think about local fees and housing – not to mention those super expensive books.

Money and the planning of finances are things you need to think about a whole lot more often than most of us want. However, it’s always smart to be the one controlling your budget and finances, instead of them controlling you.

If you think identity theft is only something that happens to someone else, or to people who are careless, think again. It happened to me a few summers ago and as far as anyone can tell, it was an inside job at my bank and I was one of the poor, random souls who got targeted. The bank backed me and I got all of the money back, but not everyone is so fortunate.

Shopping online is by far one of the most common ways that you can put yourself at risk for ID theft. Even when you ship with large retailer who has a solid security reputation, there are risks.

There is a new product available called Shop Shield®. They purport to be the most complete protection and privacy solution you can have to combat identity theft when you are shopping online.

The service is actually free right now, because it is in Beta testing and they are looking for users to help the usability of the service. That does not mean the product does not work yet, it means that the company wants to test how easy it is for the average user to actually USE. It has already been pilot testing and they know the security is solid.

If you visit Shop Shield®, you can see for yourself how the system protects your credit card numbers, bank accounts, billing address, e-mail address, and login information. With Shop Shield®, not only are you not actually even entering your personal information into the databases of the online stores where you shop, you are also preventing those companies from ever being able to sell your personal info. Why? It’s never really sent to them in the first place.

Unlike products like Mastercard Secure Code or Google Checkout, you can use Shop Shield® on any site. Intriguing, huh? Shop Shield® offers a full guarantee on their services, too. In fact, they will reimburse you up to $10,000 above the coverage your credit card company or bank provides. I’m signing up. I highly suggest you visit the site to Learn More.

Sometimes I sit and think that I did it all wrong in college. My dad tried to steer me to a degree and a career in a more profitable industry. I was quite aggressive in my desire to get a degree in English. I ended up with a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Communications. I have always worked in my fields, never made a whole lot of money, and generally enjoyed my jobs.

But still, I wonder how I would feel about life if I made three times my salary.

My friend Liz got a degree in Law. Her parents encouraged her, despite her middling interest level. She enthusiastically clerked in Philadelphia and then went on to get a job at a law firm in Chicago, her home town. In less than a year she was trolling the Chicago jobs market, looking for an in with another career. Money was no longer important to her. She wanted a life away from the stress of her job. She ended up joining the Peace Corps. That’s absolutely no career for the money-focus among us, but she is ecstatically happy in her life now.

That’s what I think about when I start obsessing about money. I think about Liz and I think about the fact that I enjoy a lot about my life as it is.

A few summers ago I got a call from my bank, which is a large regional bank in Florida and other southern states. The person on the line was calling from a branch in Georgia and she suspected my account had been hot by an identity thief.

Long story short – a woman had a false Georgia driver’s license with my name, address, and social security number on it, but her photo. She had hit three branches of my bank in Georgia that day to cash large checks against my account. That third transaction of the day had triggered an alarm in the system and the teller had asked the woman to step into an office. At that point, she fled.

Unfortunately, the system was not triggered when the woman hot my account the two prior days in another state, because she had only gone to two banks on each of those days.

In three day’s time, she had cashed over $10,000 in checks against my account. Somewhere, there is a woman with a license in my name. She had enough sensitive information about me and my account that the corporate security office for my bank felt like she must have obtained her information from an inside source. So, it is quite likely that the theft of my identity was not due to any lack of vigilance on my part. Nonetheless, it still happened to me.

In the end, my bank ate the loss. But, I was lucky. Identity theft is becoming more and more prevalent every day. In fact, this is the seventh straight year that identity theft made the top spot on the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint list. Over one-third of the FTC’s complaints have to do with identity theft. Many of the people who fall victim to this crime have nobody to back them up, like my bank did for me.

Preventative measures are your best defense. Services like Lifelock are a good deterrent. They are a sort of one stop shop. You could perform all of the tasks they do for you n your own, but it would eat up a substantial chunk of your time on a monthly basis. Instead, you can sign up for a cheap subscription plan to their services and have them do things like set up fraud alerts for your social security number, have your name taken off pre-approved and junk mail lists, order credit reports, cancel credit cards if your wallet is stolen, keep an eye out for networks selling your personal information, and even provide the means to hire an attorney if you do indeed find yourself a victim of ID theft and need to get your situation in order.