Do Business Well

This one really bugs me. It’s a philosophical thing. You’ll be pleased to see a lot of stores encouraging you in the same thing: SAVE BIG! SAVE MORE! But they’re talking about something else.

The only way to save money is . . . well, to save it. That means, Don’t spend it. When a store announces that you’ll “save money,” what they really mean is that you’ll spend less of it than if you shopped somewhere else. (And as we saw with that discount trick, that claim may not even be true.)

But whether you spend $145 for something, or “save” by spending just $125, you’re still spending it. Of course, retailers don’t want you to think that way. They know that if you focus on what you’re spending, you may have second thoughts. So they try to focus on the positive side. There’s nothing wrong with that. And if you truly are going to spend money anyway, then look for ways to spend less of it. Continue Reading »

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Your credit record is your financial reputation. If you want to rent an apartment, buy a house, get a phone hooked up, get a credit card, take out a loan, buy a blimp, or start a business, you need a good record.

A company that wants to check your credit can call other companies that have done money deals with you in the past, or they can get a report from a credit reporting bureau. But if you’ve never been granted credit in the past, you don’t have a credit record. Where do you start?

Fortunately, you don’t always need a credit record. Some credit grantors realize that no record is better than a bad one. If you don’t have one, they’ll look more carefully at other information on your credit application: Continue Reading »

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