"Funny Money" begins

For a while I spent time thinking of all of the reasons I shouldn't start writing or sharing the information I learned about personal financial literacy and responsibility. I wasted about two years by doubting myself and my qualifications, until I decided, what the heck I'll do it today. I guess I can thank unqualified people in important positions for that (wink wink). I have accumulated some knowledge and experience in the last five years of my life, which I know can be beneficial to people who are/were in my same predicament and those who want to avoid it. I will share how not to have "funny money"

My predicament was, I was employed, needed a car, and had bad credit. Not a big deal as far as I was concerned. First you should understand, I grew up in a household where we did not speak about finances. We lived as cash rules everything and I heard my parents speak about "bad credit" versus "good credit" but didn't know much passed that. My mother would proclaim she had bad credit but we still lived pretty well by my standards so I didn't think it was such a bad thing to have bad credit. Nevertheless early in my adult life I made payments around the due date, and based on what I thought I could afford to give up. Ultimately this left me with a bottom barrel credit score during my time of need. I had sooo many things that I did which contributed to my situation and I was sooo blind to my self-inflicted damage until I needed a car.

Before this time, I had cars which were paid in full, no financing, and only had to deal with simple maintenance. Unfortunately, they were gone and I did not have savings to spend on a car so I needed to finance this purchase. I figured I knew people with bad credit who were able to get cars so I shouldn't have a problem doing the same. I soon found out it was not as easy as I thought. I visited four dealerships before getting "lucky" enough to find financing and get a car. During this experience, I vowed I would not ever be in that same position in my life. I mean, I am hard working, have a great heart, have great intentions, and am genuine, unfortunately, my credit score did not reflect those same characteristics. To financers, I was a dead beat and I refused to be thought of as poorly and treated as such ever again.

I turned around my situation by becoming disciplined and informed and after not being able to finance something as simple as a car, I have been able to finance another car, after that one was paid off, finance a home purchase, receive credit card offers, and most importantly bring up my credit score to be a better representation of the values I hold. I do not blame my parents for anything except not informing me of the home essentials for balanced finances, everything else I did on my own. I want to help those who also grew up in households where finance was not a topic of discussion, have lost their way, or have found themselves with some "funny money" which never is a funny topic. Visit the blog periodically, as I breakdown some definitions and concepts which are necessary to be financially responsible as well as other topics.

Feel free to email suggestions, questions, or responses to toni@mrsfunnymoneyblog.com