DEBT MANAGEMENT

Many Americans have never seen their credit report or credit score. Information is power, and you need to know the information that they have and are quite possibly using against you. When you were a student in school, you did your homework assignments, wrote essays, and took exams. All these things were graded and counted toward your final grade at the end of the semester. You received your graded papers back as you went along, so you know where you stood. You knew if you were passing or if you were failing. You did not wait until the end of the year to receive your final report card with no prior feedback along the way to give you an indication of how you were doing. The letter grade that would be starting back at you read your report card was not a total surprise.

Can you imagine enduring an entire year of school, not knowing how you did on any of your homework or papers or tests? You just sat there, doodling on your desk, waiting in ignorance for the final grade to be delivered. Those final grades determined what college you went to or what profession you entered, but you just blindly accepted whatever your final grade card said. That kind of scenario does not make much sense, does it? And think of the times when the teacher graded something wrong that you, in fact, had correct. You were able to call it to his or her attention so the grade could be fixed. If you operated under a system where you did not get your homework back, you could not have known that there were errors that you needed to correct that affected your final grade and your future.

With any area of life, be it our education, our career, or our marriage, we need to know our progress and where we stand so we can take corrective action, if necessary. Our credit report is no exception.