I've known Joan was into women for ages, but this is the first I've heard about Carmen Electra switching teams. The straight boys will be pleased.

I've also heard that there's a positive correlation between the amount of credit you don't use and your credit score. So high limits are good if you don't use them.

I got the idea somewhere that longevity in credit card account holding was good, and that the more accounts that were open, the more it lowered your credit score. I could be wrong. Like aurelia said, conceptual money is confusing.

I have this idea also. But no hard evidence to back it up.

I keep wanting to post advice about credit strategy in the face of a potential mortgage application, but then I keep remembering that I'd totally be talking out of my ass.

I am sorry. I am probably all wrong. I thought it was what had been told tome, but it is not as if I actually read a book or anything.

I never knew longevity mattered - seems silly when switching is sometimes the only way to lower an APR.

Improving your credit score: [link]

My sole fight with my mother this weekend came about when she was reminiscing about when I was 16 and "such a handful."

Mine has yet to let go of the time I hid in a department store. I was three.

I thought everybody knew Joan was gay. Also into the kinky sex (the x-rated version of her song "Fetish" is pretty specific). Since Carmen was also with Dave Navarro, I gotta figure she's a little bent.

I never knew longevity mattered - seems silly when switching is sometimes the only way to lower an APR.

I assume this is one of the many ways that the credit card companies git ya.

I am sorry. I am probably all wrong. I thought it was what had been told tome, but it is not as if I actually read a book or anything.

Oh, I'm no authority on the matter. I wonder if there are trends and fads in financial reporting that cause us to retain this kind of contradictory advice.

From a course on credit amangement I recently took, longevity matters, because a percentage of your credit score is determined by how long your accounts have been open. It's not the largest percent of your score, though, so if, say, you're me, and you had an old card with a high limit that you kept running it up to? You might be better off to close it and get a card with a lower limit. The worst thing you can do to your credit score is be late with payments.

According to the teacher, who is a bank loan officer, the "rules" for determining credit score and credit worthiness have changed lately. The one thing I remember her mentioning in that context is, used to be if you had a lot of credit available, it made you look "dangerous" to lenders because you COULD overspend yourself and then be unable to pay them back. Now, they only look at how much you actually owe, not how much you could owe. This change may have come about because of the new bankruptcy laws. Credit companies don't have to be quite as careful about "weeding out" people who might go bankrupt on them, because now you pretty much can't. That's my own opinion, though, she didn't say that.

Back to work.