Vent: Being Responsible Doesn't Pay

Okay, aside from the government handouts to those who've been irresponsible with their money, I am angry that an excellent credit score has never been worth much. When we were looking into the MMA program to accelerate our mortgage paydown, we couldn't qualify at a regular bank for an unsecured line of credit required to make the program work. We had to go to a credit union, and even then, we only qualified for a meager amount because our income wasn't high enough, despite our nearly perfect credit score. (We decided not to go through with it because the program wouldn't have saved us enough money to make it worth it since we have so little debt.)

A few months later, we went to the same credit union to inquire about refinancing, but only a few days after the approval, before we'd locked the rate, interest rates started creeping back up and we missed the boat. I still have my fingers crossed that interests rates will drop again before our approval expires in April.

To keep things simple, I use one credit card and cash in the reward points we earn. I didn't realize at the time that this was a bad thing. We should have been using our other cards more regularly but because we did not, 2 cards closed their accounts with us due to inactivity, lowering our available credit, thus making our debt to available credit ratio heavier. Upon calling the other credit card we've had for 10 years, I discovered it too had just been closed due to inactivity 2 weeks ago! I didn't know we had to use them to stay in the game! Oh how naive I've been! What a lousy time to learn this lesson.

Due to these two inquiries, and our 3 recently closed credit cards, our credit score has dropped about 20 points, (possibly more since the last CC hadn't closed yet when we learned our current score) although we still remain within the Excellent rating. (For the perfectionist in me, it's like going from an A+ to an A-; it hurts.) I figure credit scores are more important than ever these days, but from my experience, it still doesn't help unless you have a high income too.

Now I'm even more upset to find that our low interest rate credit card, for which we pay off every month in full and have never been late, has tripled it's rate, and our fixed rate is now variable. When I called to dispute this, angry they didn't even notify me by mail, I was told that market conditions required they change their policies. I thought a fixed rate, if you maintained good credit and paid on time, would remain fixed. I guess I was wrong. Unfortunately, this is our only credit card still open. And to open another now would hurt our score due to it being new and having no history, and at this time, I'm certain no cards are offering low rates. What a fool I've been to strictly use the rewards card. Oh well. We'll just have to start building it up again.

Even though we've continued to be nearly perfect in our money management, we still get punished because I didn't know the tricks. Why is it that people who are horrible with their money are offered more credit and more freebies?