We were stupid

My husband and I were stupid.  Its a fact.  We had lots of money so credit never seemed like something we needed.  So we never took care of it.  When we were young we let things go, and only paid when the creditors got annoying enough to not ignore.  We knew their games, their empty threats, their tactics.  None of it mattered.  Why should it?  We did not need credit!  We had tons of money to buy in cash.  Credit meant nothing.

That was really stupid.  About 2 years ago I was contracting with a company for work regularly, and we based all of our lifestyle on that income.  Then the company I contracted for changed owners, and everything changed.  I no longer had contract work, and the businesses were not bringing in enough income.  My husband's income would cover everything, but just barely.  We have two leased cars, and a house, as well as a loan for some property we own...all in my mother's name.  We make the payments, but because our credit is trash we could not get the loans without help.  It was no big deal at the time.  But now its huge. 

My mother also lost her job with that same contracting company and she could not make her part of the house payment (her portion cancels out her side of the taxes) so she let it go into foreclosure.  She is applying for modification through the new plan the president put into place but that is going no where.  Soon we will need to get a home in our own name, turn in the leased cars and get new ones, and rewrite the property loan we have.  This is going to take credit.

Its time to grow up.

So here is our credit, point blank.  And the future is all about rebuilding the past.  I am going to use every tactic I have read about to try and clean up the credit we have, and use the secured forms of credit to add to our existing history in a positive way.  We are determined to fix what we have walked away from in the past.