Church Voices

This is another installment in my series on why and how Christians should be bad consumers.

While on a weekend get away I managed to watch some cable TV, which means that I managed to also watch some commercials. This one included.

Yep, another website trying to scam money for a service that’s already free. If you need excellent credit then it makes sense to worry about your credit report. The thing is, for most of us, it doesn’t really matter all that much, or if we just ignored it we’d be better off. Credit only matters if you’re planning on borrowing large sums of money. Sure, if you want to borrow money to start a small business, or buy a house, then by all means pay close attention and clean up your credit.

But, take for example this person who wrote to the consumerist to ask if it was worth it to close a credit card in exchange for a lower interest rate. She notes they have a lot of debt and this particular card won’t be paid off for five years. Her concern with closing the account is how it will affect her credit score.

In her case, who cares? If you’ve got so much debt you can’t pay off this card for a few years your credit score shouldn’t matter to you. You shouldn’t be looking to borrow more money, you should be looking to pay off debt. In fact, this particular person would probably be better served to stop paying completely, negotiate a settlement to pay off at a lower amount. Sure your credit report will get all frowny for a few years, but in the long run, you’re better off.

For some reason credit bureaus have convinced many Americans that credit scores matter, and so they have more power, and higher revenue. The reality is, that for most people, credit scores matter very little, and in fact credit in general does a lot of damage to lives.

Be a bad consumer and don’t worry about your credit score unless you need to borrow money, and if you need to borrow money every month to get by, its time to make some changes.