credit Archives • Bitches Get Riches

How To Fix an Error on Your Credit Report Without Losing Your Damn Mind

April 23, 2024April 12, 2024 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 1 Comment

Welcome back, beloved bitchlings! Last time you heard from me I was in Furious Economic Justice Avenger mode with my news about how credit scoring is a racist, classist system that has us all trapped in its nefarious clutches. I didn’t leave you with much by way of optimism in that article… but I did dangle a carrot of hope. Specifically, how to fix errors in your credit report.

As we discussed, the credit reporting bureaus have no legal obligation to be accurate. Which seems like a major oversight, but hey—this is America. They are, however, obligated to investigate and correct errors at your request.

So today I’m going to walk you through the steps of identifying and fixing errors on your credit report. Statistically speaking, you might have a few! The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau says that one in five people have a mistake in at least one of their credit reports. One in five, I shit you not! And getting all three of the major credit reporting bureaus to correct those mistakes could give your credit score a needed boost.

Credit Scoring Is a Racist, Classist System that Has Us All Trapped

April 2, 2024April 12, 2024 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 8 Comments

Imagine a ranking system that assigns everyone a number. You don’t opt into this program; you’re automatically enrolled. And there’s no way to opt out. You’re involved whether you like it or not.

You also don’t have any say over the judges, those determining and adjusting your score as you go through life. These judges actually make money off of scoring you.

The worst part is that your opportunities in life—renting an apartment, getting a loan, qualifying for insurance, landing a job—are dependent on your ranking.

Imagine no more, dear readers! For I just described the United States’ system of credit scoring. Supposedly, credit scores are a neutral, unbiased metric for determining a borrower’s risk in the lending market. In reality, they function as a racist, classist trap from which there’s little escape.

Them’s some heavy claims! Don’t worry though: I brought receipts. And lots of them end in .gov so you know they’re legit!

How to Build Good Credit Without Going Into Debt

May 17, 2023May 17, 2023 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 4 Comments

Adult human beings need credit—good credit—to do lots of important adult things such as renting apartments and buying cars. We’ve been over this! But conventional wisdom says that the best way—nay, the only way—to build good credit is by accumulating debt.

That assumption about building credit through getting in debt feels backwards to me. For after all, the entire purpose of a credit score is to show that you’re worthy of loans. So you have to owe money so that you can then… owe money? And having debt, whether it be in the form of a balance on a credit card or just Ye Olde Student Loane, can lead you down a fucking terrifying cycle of overspending and interest that can eventually damage your credit, rather than helping it.

So let’s toss out the conventional wisdom. There’s got to be a better way! And there is. For it’s entirely possible to steadily build good credit without going into a day of debt.

How to Instantly Increase Your Credit Score… for FREE

March 21, 2023March 21, 2023 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 17 Comments

While we were in the mystical city of Cincinnati recently, we did a live Drunk AMA on YouTube! It was great. We slow-flossed to a church hymn and dispelled the rumor that Ducky is, in fact, a vampire.

One of the questions we received was about Experian Boost. It’s just one of many services that offer to raise your credit score… for a fee. Even in our chaotic drunken state, we were lucid enough to unequivocally recommend that most of you shouldn’t bother with these paid services. There’s an easier, faster, and free way to raise your credit score!

Since not everyone wants to suffer through a 97-minute YouTube video of our collective vocal fry, I am now here to share the wisdom of how to instantly raise your credit score for free. Cast aside those paid services that promise you a better credit score! This is all you need to know.

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Credit and Credit Cards

January 5, 2023July 31, 2023 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") Leave a comment

You didn’t want to watch a scary movie. But your friends at the 10th-grade sleepover insisted. “It’ll be fun!” they said. “Don’t be chicken!” they said.

Now you find yourself huddled under blankets on the couch in your best friend’s basement rec room giggling nervously over popcorn and hoping you won’t pee yourself at the first jump scare. Your friends shush each other as the movie starts.

Creepy music ushers in the opening scene. Lighting and thunder clash on the screen. With the lights turned off and you trembling with fear, the title of tonight’s horror movie flashes across the screen: Credit IV: It Comes for Us All.

Watching horror movie Credit IV: It Comes for Us All

One of the most common questions we get here at Bitch HQ is “… creeeediiiiit??????” And that’s not surprising! The system of credit reporting, credit scores, and credit cards is hella confusing. It’s also pretty fucking classist, racist, and ageist… by design. Heckin’ scary, man!

So to fulfill our mission of [checks notes] sticking it to The Man by democratizing financial acumen, we’ve written and said a ton on this topic. Here it all is: our primer to understanding and managing your credit so you can use it to get ahead… or at least prevent it from getting you down.

Ask the Bitches: Should I Get a Loan Even Though I Can Afford To Pay Cash?

May 31, 2022August 2, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 7 Comments

Let’s talk about the logistics of paying for large purchases. As in: When should I get a loan? And how big should that loan be? Should you ever forego a down payment or paying with cash even when you can afford it?

Unlike the suitcase full of dirty laundry you brought home from that conference three whole weeks ago… let’s unpack this! And our favorite way to unpack a problem is with a real-live question from a real-live reader with a real-live dilemma:

Hello sage bitches. My trusty old car is on its way out, and I’m going to need to get a new one soon. I do have enough money in savings to buy it outright without a loan (though it would put a… substantial dent in those savings), but some family members keep saying it might be a better idea to see if I can get a low-interest loan instead, because it “would be good to have paid off a big loan.” I do have a credit score of ~800, so it’s possible that I could get a decent loan, and I have heard a lot of vague things about how it’s good for your credit to have payed off a big purchase before, but something in me hates the idea of having to pay a higher total sum than I have to. Any advice?
An anonymous yet glorious citizen of Bitch Nation we’ll call Chickadee

In other words: “Should I get a loan just to improve my credit score even if I can afford to pay cash?”

Credit Card Companies HATE Her! Stay Out of Credit Card Debt With This One Weird Trick

May 17, 2022May 17, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 30 Comments

Kitty was once at an event where a credit card company was hawking their new cash rewards credit card. The credit card rep excitedly told her about all the cash back rewards she could earn by using the card, and how the interest wasn’t even “that bad!”

But mama didn’t raise no fool. Instead of falling head over heels for low interest, Kitty asked, “But what if someone pays off the credit card debt in full and on time? Will they still get the rewards?”

“Ah,” the credit card rep sighed, “we call those people deadbeats.”

That’s right: deadbeats. Credit card companies fucking hate people like Kitty and I. And that’s exactly how we like it!

Ask the Bitches: What’s the Difference Between Credit Checks and Credit Monitoring?

April 6, 2021April 15, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 5 Comments

The world of personal finance is full of terms designed to confuse and waylay the innocent. Yet you are a beautiful and mysterious adventurer on the exciting journey of life! You do not have time to parse the different meanings of seemingly synonymous financial terms like “credit checks” and “credit monitoring.”

Fortunately, we’re a coupla’ nerds with nothing better to do.

Recently, an anonymous follower (we’ll call them “Pudding Cup” because I assume that, like pudding, they are both sweet and smooth) asked:

Dear Piggy and Kitty, I have a question. I just got an email from the auditing office of my state saying that the unemployment filing host “Accellion” was hacked and they don’t think anything happened, but are offering a free year of credit monitoring. I have no idea what that would do or how I would use it to make sure nothing bad happened? Also doesn’t monitoring your credit (somehow?) make it worse? Would this be helpful or not really?

In short, Pudding Cup has mixed up two distinctly different concepts to do with credit: credit monitoring and credit checks. I’ll detangle the two below.

Case Study: Held Back by Past Financial Mistakes, Fighting Bad Credit and $90K in Debt

March 3, 2021March 3, 2021 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 13 Comments

Hi, it’s me again—your Good With Money Friend! It’s time for another case study. This time we’re talking about how to recover from past financial mistakes.

You guys really enjoyed our first case study. It tackled problems related to student loan debt, employment instability, and paying through the nose for rent in a high cost of living area. I’ve been hoping to do another one, but all of my friends’ most recent money issues have been too specific to their situations to be helpful to a broader audience.

Until now!

A friend reached out, asking for help repairing her damaged credit score. So she scheduled a 30 minute call with me to discuss her options, because I’m literally that bitch.

Obviously it turned into a ninety-minute call, mostly because I love the sound of my own voice. (Vocal fry ’til I die!) But really because the more we talked, the clearer it became that her credit score wasn’t her main enemy on the battlefield for financial stability. It was like a machine gun a mile away: an easy threat to identify, making a huge racket and scaring the shit out of everyone, but not actually that threatening in her present circumstances.

If you’ve struggled with debt, or you want to hone your Good With Money Friend skills, read on. Hopefully hearing about her situation will help some other folks!

A Hand-holding Guide To Getting Your First Credit Card

February 17, 2020March 21, 2023 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 6 Comments

I got my first credit card at age eighteen. I was a high school senior. I’d just been accepted into college, and the world was my goddamn oyster (but slightly less like salty snot). The year was 2005… and getting that shiny little piece of plastic was just about as easy as putting out my hand and asking for it.

Times have changed. We now live in a post-2008 Recession world, and getting your first credit card has become markedly harder. This is probably why we constantly receive questions from eighteen-year-olds like “I’ve submitted nine applications and no one will give me a credit card. What do???”

The Ramseyan debt purists will say “Do without it, you fool!” But we believe a credit card can be an extremely useful weapon in your financial arsenal. Just look at what happened when Kitty and her boyfriend tried to rent an apartment together and couldn’t because he had no credit!