Credit check

Holy cow!

I just checked my credit scores on Credit Karma (I love Credit Karma. It's reliable. It's got nice graphics. It's FREE!) Since paying off my credit cards, my scores have increased by about 40 points!

Granted, the whole point here is to avoid taking out additional loans, but this is gratifying nonetheless. What if our current (also only and issue-ridden) car suddenly craps out? Or what if we need to get a loan for whatever reason? A high credit score will be useful in the long run by helping ensure a low interest rate loan so that we don't have to rely on our high interest rate credit cards.

Meanwhile, we took some action and made some decisions today:

1) We started selling some of our belongings on eBay. A few years ago I sold a bunch of our stuff on eBay with good success. I'll be interested to see whether we can do so this time around. No time like the present to start living a lighter life!

2) After a lot of research and discussion, we've decided that our first RV for this grand adventure will be a Class C RV. We really like fifth wheel trailers, but we don't have a truck and we don't want to go in for a truck loan. So the goal is to save enough to purchase a used, livable class C within the next several months, take it on a few shakeout trips, get it ready to go, and live in it for about a year. If we're still gung-ho about the RV life after that time, we'll upgrade to a nicer, roomier unit.

Two favorite finance sites

I've recently started using two online personal finance tools that I think are worth recommending to others: Mint.com and CreditKarma.com. These are sites that I now refer to on a regular basis as I track our finances, debt reduction progress, and credit scores. Unlike a lot of other personal finance tools, you don't pay for these services. They're free, and they're easy to use.

~Mint.com: This site allows you to view all of your accounts - checking, savings, credit cards, investments, student loans, mortgage, etc. - in one secure place. After enrolling, you search for each account that you want to track, input your username and password for that account, and voila: Mint.com displays your most recent balance for that account every time you log in. It totals your net worth, calculates your average monthly spending in various categories such as restaurants, groceries, gas, and clothing, allows you to create a budget, and gives you a sense of where you might be overspending. 

You can't make transactions on the site; for instance, you can't move money from your checking account to an investment account, or take money from your savings to pay off a credit card, etc. It simply gathers a record of your assets and debts into one basket.

One thing I like about this tool is that Mint.com will send you notifications about your accounts - for instance, when your monthly loan payment is due, or when the interest rate on one of your credit card increases. 

~creditkarma.com: I know I'm not the only person who's ever requested her credit score only to get duped into a pricy monthly credit monitoring service! That's why I like this site: it's free, and it doesn't get all sneaky by roping you into extras that you don't need. Instead, it obtains your credit score from one of the main credit bureaus (keep in mind that the score will often vary depending on the credit reporting agency), provides you with a general interpretation/explanation for that score via a CreditKarma "report card," and allows you to track your credit score over time. 

I've been using it for several months now, and I haven't seen anything shady in CreditKarma's practices. Checking CreditKarma doesn't affect your credit score in any way. You can find more information about how this service operates here.