Monday, July 28, 2008

Credit Scores

Woohoo! I was pleasantly surprised to find the credit score I get through Scorewatch is the middle score. I bought Transunion in June - 743 and bought the other e-one in July at 782. 782! That makes my goal of 760+ by Feb/Apr of 2009 more attainable! My Scorewatch score is 747. I've heard they use the middle one so that's only 13 points.

Now I just have to resist the temptation to keep buying these things. The only thing I know should help bump them up is a couple of inquiries falling off. A couple fell off in June. One should be rolling off in December. The next two to go would be in Feb and May of 2009.

Other than that I don't think there's much I can do except keep on keeping on. No lates, no high utilization.

I wish there was a product like Scorewatch which included all three reports.. Shucks.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Monthly Update

Build emergency fund to 6 mo expenses - 98.3% (Down 2.5%)
Pay off car loan - 7.8 (Up 1.6%)
Pay off student loan - 7.1% (No Change)
House down payment - 4.4% (Up 3.3%)

Okay, with the end of June I decided it was a good time to re-evaluate the emergency fund. I've been shooting for 6 months of expenses so I had to up it a bit. Even though I added money (a little), my progress percent went down.

Yay, the car loan seems to be moving quickly with the bi-weekly payments and the low interest rate.

Also, the down payment is going well. I'm thinking about adjusting the total goal down since I will probably start shopping when I have 3% down + expected closing costs. I was originally shooting for more like 5-6% down and closing costs but, too anxious and on the surface I would qualify for a WHEDA loan with reduced PMI and low down payment and slightly advantaged interest rate with only 3%. That does give me a narrow range I expect to be able to afford so if I adjust the goal down and can't find anything when I hit it, I'll just have to keep saving..

I'm looking forward to July as August is a 3 pay check month. The way I work my checks, the extra from August will mostly "hit" in July. I've been using the current month's check for next month's expenses. I don't know if that makes sense but it works for me..