Credit and Credit Cards: a Reevaluation of The Credit Process

By YvonneG

For the first 40 years of my life, I operated on the principle of no money, no purchase.   Because I lived by this principle, I was accused of being “behind the times” because while most people were involved in the credit process, I was still living with the antiquated idea of saving money first, and purchasing whatever I wanted later.

Then lo and behold, I began working at American Express, a fantastic company that showered luxury on its employees and customers! Soon after I was hired, they offered me my first credit card.    They were paying me a great salary, flying me all over the country to attend meetings that were completely catered by them, while putting me up in the finest hotels where these meetings were going on. Now they were offering me a credit card with no strings attached — that is, no jumping through hoops like all the other companies were requiring — after a quick background check, the credit card was mine!

Some years later, Capital One came into my life. They too offered a fairly easy process to contend with and I soon received not one, but two credit cards! I started out handling all of my credit cards with care and prudence, purchasing only that which I could afford to pay for within a given period of time. As a reward for my prudence, the credit card companies increased my credit limits to a total of approximately $30,000 between the three cards. This was a definite boost to my ego!

By this time, my credit score was very good and I was able to purchase my first home. I was also able to completely remodel this home because my credit score said I was a good risk for an additional line of credit of almost $50,000!    I have to tell you this was just too much for the kid! I greedily took everything that was offered to me and went on what could be considered to be a serious spending spree.

Fast forward to the present. Soon, that great salary that I was receiving from American Express was slashed almost in half. Oh dear, I certainly didn’t expect this. Now what was I to do? I only had one route to take and that was my retirement account. I had no desire to touch this because I didn’t have very much in this account to begin with. But because of all that spending I had done, I now had to figure out a way to pay those bills. I thought I was managing alright until I was given the news this a short time later that I was being laid off from my job at American Express. Okay, that’s a wrap!