By industry standards, I am a deadbeat, too. There are months when I pay off my business credit accounts and it can reach nearly $10K. Any given month. It is about $7500 or so, but it is due every month. Rain days? What are those? Client doesn't pay on time? Not my creditors fault, you can ask them. No excuses, no leeway. If I miss or I am late, I might get a pass, but most likely will be terminated as a credit client. Commercial credit is demanding; a late fee for an "oops" isn't part of the equation. So I don't miss, and I am not late.

My house is paid off and has been for years. My old beater truck was paid off 10 years ago. I carry very little personal credit and actually only have one personal credit card. When I checked my credit scores a couple of years ago, they were disappointingly low. I called the clearing house (TransUnion of Equifax) and they told me that it wasn't that I had bad credit, it was that I didn't have ANY credit history of recent vintage. My training in credit services was ringing in my ears. "The prospective client must be able to demonstrate the ability to repay along with a current and active history of timely repayment".

I put my eye surgery on my card ($9K) and paid it out using various schemes over about 2 years. My FICO score went up about 35 points, and I started getting more credit card offers. Hurray! Robert needs us again! Let's load him up!

It took a long time to get through my noggin that the credit card industry and other short term lenders don't care how much debt you have. (NOT talking the mortgage industry.) They care about your ability to repay. They don't care that you are a thrifty saver. Case in point, when you applied for a credit card, did they verify and of your cash on hand or CDs, etc.? Nope, they run a credit report, take your word on your income, and make a decision. You can be overwhelmed with debt, and have NO money in the bank and still get more credit cards.

Credit card companies have no use for thrifty people, highly disciplined spenders, or folks that refuse to be sodomized by them. 10 years in lending led me to despise the short term credit industry.

To make the point that the credit card issuers, servicers, and promoters are souless vampires that will drink every drop of your blood, watch this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/

It is a few years old, but NOTHING has changed, except to get worse. They even have the guy that developed the scheme that has a person pay so little on their credit cards that they can never pay it off. That is modified now and is illegal, but your minimum payment can still be less than the debt service fee, making that payment an interest only payment.

The documentary shows how scheming, cunning, and evil the credit card companies are, and again, they are worse now than they were when that documentary was made. The documentary stays up though, as most people don't have any idea how credit cards work.

Literally, when I saw that documentary, it gave me shivers. I have encouraged anyone I can to take a look at it.

Robert