Back many moons – think, say, 12 or 13 years – I made a few bad choices that have snuck up on my lately.
First bad choice: I decided to change my college major from a double major in Journalism & Marketing (odd combo to be sure, but appears it probably would have been a good choice in these strange days had I stuck with it) to Heavy Drinking with a minor in Recreational Drug Use. Fairly self-explanatory bad choice there.
Bad choice #2: Being a college student, I had essentially no money. Trust me, it’s hard to pull off a major in Heavy Drinking with almost no money. But credit was (and likely still is) available everywhere if you’re a college student that hasn’t been kicked out yet. Stop at the College Bookstore, and there before you lay 5 or 6 credit card offers in brochure holders tacked to the bulletin board out front that were all but guaranteed. Oh, sure, you’d get all of $500 or $1,000 for a credit line, but that’ll buy you quite a few beers in a college town. And with a 15-20 buck minimum payment every month, even I could afford that at the time.
Bad Choice #3: [More of a continuation than a whole new choice, but it's my ramblings and I'll write it how I want... 
] That is, until I racked up 5 or 6 of those $500-$1,000 credit lines and was doing quite well in my newfound major thank-you-very-much. But then that $15-20 5 or 6 times can seriously cut into a Heavy Drinking budget when you’re essentially unemployable, so maybe we’ll only pay 2 or 3 of those this month. And next month, how about maybe none? And we’ll just stop answering the phone, let voicemail screen everything for me.
‘Ah, good, Chase/MBNA/what-have-you has stopped calling. Never heard of these NCS folks! I’ll ignore them as well…’
And did so, for two or three years.
And thusly, absolutely atrocious credit is born.
At the end of those two or three rather unpleasant years, I get on with my life, gave up on my new major and instead go on to get one in Journalism (which I, to this day, haven’t used in any professional capacity, but do not in any way regret). I go about paying off my creditors and in short time take care of what was, in actuality, a relatively minor debt. Which brings us to…
Bad Choice #4: And then never again apply for any form of credit. Mind you, I have credit cards with my name on them, but they are technically my wife’s – I just had her add me to her account as an authorized user, like I was her teenage son or some such nonsense.
Why does that matter, you ask? Well, I’m not at all happy with one of our credit card companies (MBNA, evil bastards that they are), and maybe would like to do a little card shopping. But there is absolutely no way I can qualify for any decent credit since I have essentially no credit history anymore. Oh, sure, all the stupid crap from a decade ago has been wiped out (and thank god for that!), but nothing at all has been added since then either, short of a few apartment rental agreements. And creditors don’t seem to really care if you can pay now, they want to know if you have paid what you owed in the (fairly recent) past.
So, if anyone has a suggestion or two on good credit (re)building practices, I’m all ears… I don’t need anything like perfect credit tomorrow or anything of the sort (hell, a suggestion on a decent secured CC would be useful at this point), but a way to get on the path would be greatly appreciated!
