Ryan McFarland

My finance skills are pretty weak. I have to wonder if i ever would have earned the related merit badge in scouts if my mom hadn’t been the councilor. But over the past few years they have become much stronger.

Today i had a few moments to give some of my staff at work some suggestions on their taxes and their credit cards. Katie was telling me that she had paid off her credit card debt until just recently but was able to transfer her balances from a 22% credit card to two different 0% for 12 and 15 months. She said she cut up her old credit cards and i told her that she needs to do more than that. Cutting up credit cards is a good idea if you need to take advantage of a strong moment to eliminate a debt agent from your life. But you still need to cancel the cards with the company. Those accounts will remain open and on your credit report for a long time. I suggested she get one of her free credit reports and scour it for accounts that she isn’t using.

You can see that my credit score seems to have stabilized. It took that hit when Mike and I had a flurry of accounts open in our names for the bike shop. In hindsight we should have just opened one line of credit to buy the business and to keep the store supplied instead of applying for lines of credit with our various suppliers. As it is, we only use the line of credit with Trek and that’s primarily because they have a great “buy in the fall and no money due till spring” deal.

I’m working on paying off my highest interest card right now - my Bank of America Alaska Airlines card. I could have consolidated my cards with a creditloan but once again, that would be a ping on my account i would rather prevent.  Once that card is paid off i will keep it open even though there is an annual fee.  The $50 companion fare certificate is a big perk - along with the double miles for Alaska Airlines tickets purchased with it.  Next i’ll chop away at the balance on the 0% card that i have.  (Note to self: see when that balance transfer begins to accrue interest.)

Once we have those debts settled we’ll go back to our aggressive mortgage payment plan to help us rebuild equity in the house.  We’ll also put away money for the next rainy day.  But the first thing we’ll probably do is go on a vacation!