Links ARCHIVE: FOOL.com - Consumer Credit and Marriage

Published on September 15, 2004 By joeKnowledge In Home & Family

SOURCE: FOOL.com

Credit Tete-a-Tete

The Motley Fool's resident consumer credit junkie Dayana Yochim recently chatted with longtime Consumer Credit discussion board mentor Joel Corley about couples and credit issues, the truth about FICO scores, and what everyone should know about keeping a clean credit rap sheet.

No "Clean Up Your Credit Campaign" would be complete without getting the pro's perspective. In true Foolish fashion we went not to the credit reporting industry or even a credit counseling agency, but to the best credit expert we could find: One without any conflicts of interest.

Joel Corley is a fixture on the Consumer Credit/Credit Cards discussion board, offering advice, insights, and opinions on all things plastic. Joel made his way to The Motley Fool in 1999 when a co-worker recommended that he check out the stock talk discussion boards. But it was the goings-on in his personal life that lured him to the Consumer Credit discussion. "What I read on that board resonated with what I was experiencing," he says. "After a while, I began to view the board as a kind of social community that I could relate to; and honestly, it became addictive."

We're glad he got hooked. Nearly 3,000 posts later, Joel is regarded as one of that active board's most knowledgeable participants. I recently chatted with him about couples.....

DY: Joel, you are The Man on the credit card discussion board. How did you get so smart about this stuff?

Joel Corley: Well... first, I don't consider myself an expert on credit cards or consumer credit. My chosen field of expertise is computer programming; but I've always had an interest in law and finance. But a personal financial crisis helped focus some of that interest toward my own personal finances.

My employer sent me to Santa Barbara, Calif. for a few months in 1990 to work on a project. With my wife's assistance, we had managed to max out all of our credit cards (about $10,000 to $12,000), and we were living paycheck to paycheck. The weekend before I left, my wife asked if she could start a new diet program. I told her we could think about it after I got back in a few months.

The next weekend all the bills I had written bounced and our joint checking account had been cleaned out by a sizable check to Jenny Craig. I was left stranded in Santa Barbara without any money for living expenses and no way to cover those bounced checks. That experience started a long search for a way to get a handle on our finances.

That event inspired me to look for ways to isolate the damage done to our finances and protect our assets and my credit from her mistakes....

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