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Nathan and I are trying to get our finances in order with a strong plan for the next year and thereafter. He’s really the “budget” person in the family in the sense that he keeps up with Quicken, and is much better at organizing our finances. But I do think we balance each other out quite a bit as I can be a good saver and planner for long term goals.

I found out a few things this weekend that I thought I could share to help other people out who are either afraid of money or were never taught properly how to manage it (I am both of these)!

Of course we own Suze Orman’s Young, Fabulous, and Broke. I have owned this for a few years now, and it sits lovingly on the back of the toilet for reading often.

I also learned about My Fico today! And, I love it. Not only does it report your Fico score, but lists in detail what has directly contributed to your score. It also has a planner feature that allows you to see how your score would be effected by a myriad of sources (paying on time as opposed to not, opening new credit lines, etc).

While I always knew a good debt to credit ratio was important to a Fico score, I did not realize how important it is - 35% of your score is based on this and timely payments! A person with the highest Fico score has not missed a single payment in 4 years! Very interesting!

Well, here’s to getting it together financially and looking forward to the future. The most important thing to remember is that a good score takes time and patience to achieve.