Ryan McFarland

One of the finance blogs that i read occasionally (The Finance Journey) mentioned a site called Quizzle. This is a source for you to look at your Experian credit score for free. Experian credit scores are based on a scale from 300-900 so it differs from the FICO score you would have. Mine is currently a 774 out of 900. I’ll be sure to pop in every now and then to get a peek at it compared to the score i revealed to me via Wamu.

If you want to use it they also have a budget service that lets you plug in annual or monthly expenses to review your overall budget outlook. I don’t like that you can’t break out the income figures (like my paycheck vs. bike shop or web design) but otherwise it works pretty well. They seem to have focused heavily on a fancy interface but that definitely makes it slow to enter figures, change categories, and generally work with the options they have.

Using the free credit score report offered to Wamu credit card holders here is the latest look at my score.

You can see the pleasant “S” curve i am creating. I’m glad it is on the rise. There is no doubt that my aggressive debt reduction schedule is helping. Also, by not applying for any new accounts (either personal or business) i have been keeping the credit report inquiries to a minimum.

I recently went through my credit accounts to see the interest rate on my cards. For my reference in the future here is the standard purchase interest rate on my cards.

• Bank of America - Alaska Airlines Platinum Plus - 14.49%
• American Express - 16.24%
• Chase - Free Cash Rewards - 0% (promotional)

The American Express was at 29.24% and i called and requested an interest rate reduction. She conducted a review of my account and was able to drop it to 16.24%. On top of that, she was able to make the rate change retroactive by two billing statements. I receive 22.24% “cash” back on purchases with this card. The cash comes as a Costco gift certificate.

My credit score has taken a hit over the last half of this year. I imagine it is from the many recent credit pings from the mortgage and buying the bike shop. I had probably a half dozen credit checks for Zoom Bikes. I also had a month or two where i made a few credit card payments a day late - i thought i had payments scheduled! Things are not bad enough that i need to get bad credit loans, but i am taking much more care about applying for additional cards. I was in a habit of applying for the next offer with a 0% balance transfer so i could move money around from account to account without too many financial incentives to pay it off.

I’ve seen a 100 point plummet in my score in the last 5 months! Once again, i’m not too concerned. I have an aggressive repayment schedule for my two personal accounts and the business balances are being trimmed down. I do feel like a multi ethnic group of mixed gender business people are looking at me though. Oh - maybe that’s because of the mixed crowd that reads this.