Customer Reviews

Living Well with Bad Credit: Buy a House, Start a Business, and Even Take a Vacation - No Matter How Low Your Credit Score

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Chris Balish and Geoff Williams have come up with a sympathetic, clear, and helpful guide to navigating everyday and large financial decisions. The book is geared towards people with low credit scores, but it also offers information helpful to all of us. The main causes of the disruption/destruction of solid credit history are "divorce, disaster, a serious medical condition, or getting laid off from a job."

We know that the cost of bad credit is expensive, so Living Well With Bad Credit is especially helpful with its solid suggestions of ways to both save money and to be able to get hired, find decent housing, rent a car, start a business, go on a vacation (not a posh one!), and repair credit history.

The book is divided into these ten parts:

* Welcome to the Land of Bad Credit
* Banking with Bad Credit
* Getting a Good Job with Bad Credit
* Good Housing with Bad Credit
* Driving: Bad Credit in the Passenger Seat
* Starting a Business with Bad Credit
* Living with Bad Credit
* Avoiding Bad Credit Scams
* Bad Credit: Psychology 101

Each of the chapters are straightforward and helpful. Balish and Williams flag what to look out for in each of the categories and offer specific ways to manage with a low credit score.

In Banking with Bad Credit, the book briefly explains ChexSystems which computes and tracks everyone's credit scores. Since 80% of banks in the country subscribe to ChexSystem and a low credit score or disastrous credit history can make it difficult to open a checking account with a major bank, Balish and Williams suggest looking into the bank's Second Chance program which may be a way to open a bank account again. Balish and Williams describe the "unbanked" and the costs that are incurred through payday lenders, pawnshops, and check-cashing outlets. Balish and Williams also evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using Probity Financial Services, [...], and credit unions for their financial services.

In Housing with Bad Credit, Balish and Williams offer ways to find decent housing through unusual housing arrangements, selecting the landlords that might be more open to a tenant with bad credit, and different ways that someone with bad credit can negotiate a lease with a landlord. Balish and Williams also cover different ways to obtain a mortgage or purchase a home from finding lenders and credit unions that are sympathetic to lenders with a bad credit history to seller financing to "rent-to-own", lease-purchase and lease-option ways to acquire a home.

Beyond the specific tips offered in the book, Balish and Williams share their own experiences to good effect. Williams explains how he found himself having to declare bankruptcy. As Williams describes the steps that he took as he drew deeper into debt, the mistakes that he made, and what he went through and how he started over, Living Well with Bad Credit becomes more than the usual personal finance book.

ISBN-10: c - Paperback $12.95
Publisher: Publisher: HCI (January 4, 2010), 192 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher and TLC Book Tours.

The biggest problem with nearly all of the books about credit that are on the market is this: They're all about how to improve your credit, as though that's somehow the key to financial success.

Guess what?

It isn't. Good credit is what gets people into debt trouble in the first place. The only good thing you can do with a high credit score is buy a house. Everything else -- consumer goods, new cars, private student loans, boats, luxury vacations, etc. -- is bad.

What Geoff Williams and Chris Balish show in this book that is actually quite groundbreaking is this: YOU DON'T NEED GOOD CREDIT TO HAVE A GOOD FINANCIAL LIFE! I would rather be rich than have good credit and, contrary to popular belief, the two are not really that related. Most people use a high credit score to destroy their financial lives, not improve them.

Major props to Chris Balish and Geoff Williams for putting together a book whose time has come.

Wake up, America! Your credit score is not some token of your moral value! Get over your credit score and live your life -- and this is just the book you need to get started.

5 STARS.

Zac Bissonnette
AOL Money & Finance

This book is an insult to ones intelligence. Instead of an informative read about all kinds of ways to live in a credit-filled world and rebuild your credit while still being able to do all the things you need to do...this book has nothing in it that you wouldn't know already...

If you are looking for a book that gives you any valuable information, look somewhere else...this is more of a guys personal experience living with no credit rather than anything that is infromative about doing something about your situation.

I am a professional credit counsellor and was reviewing this book to see if it was informative enough to recommend to clients. What I found was an absurd collection of "duh" information.

for instance? can't buy a house? rent an apartment (wow...who would have thought of that?)

or...want to take a vacation? go camping! (geez thank you for that insightful advice)

Can't rent a car? Borrow a friends.

Unfortunately you NEED a credit card for some vital activities, like renting a car or buying an airline ticket (contrary to the outdated advice, buying an airline ticket with a wad of cash after 9-11, is NOT accepted by most major airlines)

There are secured credit cards that give you the exact credit for the deposit you give AND they pay you interest for that deposit. Its a bit of a hassle, yes, but try renting a car without a credit card today.

Also there are affinity cards that give you a large "credit line" that can boost your credit score significantly. Of course that "credit limit" is only for their overpriced goods, but you don't have to buy anything from them (just keep the card 'active') and it gives the illusion that credit grantors are accepting your credit again.

Also there are other ways to "give yourself credit" - such as plunking down a few hundred dollars to your bank as collateral and "borrowing" that money back. You will pay a little bit of interest, but you get the loan at 'prime' (since it is fully secured) and when you pay it back, you are rebuilding credit (credit reports do not differentiate between secured and unsecured term loans).

Also, simply checking your credit file periodically and "questioning" any items that denote bad credit, causes that item to be temporarily "suspended" until they "investigate" (which means they send a letter to the creditor to ask for confirmation). Some creditors respond and confirm but if they do not within 30 days, that item must be removed by law! And during the time of the "dispute", that item is removed from your credit score calculation temporarily giving your score a "boost", so if you time it properly, you can apply for a mortgage or credit card in this window and may be approved.

I cannot think of anything good this book can be used for except perhaps propping up a loose window....or as kindling for your fireplace.

I really appreciated this book so much. The authors -- one of whom went through his own bad credit saga and ultimately a bankruptcy -- are down to earth and write in a highly accessible manner. I had always been pretty good with my credit and money, until a serious medical event (brain tumor). Then the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan. I had medical insurance, I had savings, and still ended up with a pile of debt that was crushing me. The authors helped me see the errors of my ways -- in hindsight, my reserves were insufficient -- and also to see that even the best of us can mismanage our budgets, make bad forecasts, or just pull the short straw.

My own debt crisis began just as the Wall Street crisis unfolded. I had always just assumed it was a good thing to have credit cards, and before my medical saga, I generally kept my balances low or at zero. AND paid on time. But when the recession hit, some of my cards were cancelled, some lowered the limits, and the rates were jacked way up. Watching the melt-down from a hospital bed, I had some time to reflect on the whole set of assumptions we've been living with as a culture about money, credit, debt and risk. And self-employed (as the authors are), I saw my income plummet by two thirds. I found myself in a virtual 21st century debtors prison of the body, mind and soul.

What was so helpful about this book, for me, were the tales about how I'm not alone, and how you really can live, and live well -- I dare say, live better! -- without a great credit score. My credit score will eventually recover, but perhaps even more important, I no longer care so much about it. The whole "your credit score is your life you have to have a good one to do anything" conversation, I'm beginning to suspect, is part of a whole way we have been trained, like lab rats, to relate to our money. I've made payment plans for some of my debt, and have offered settlements to the credit card companies (20 cents on the dollar, which they were happy to take, since my only alternative was bankruptcy).

I don't really see the need to have a bunch of credit cards ever again in my life, and I no longer define my value as a human being by my credit score. I use a debit card for things that require a card (ex. hotel when traveling), and keep one credit card for dire emergencies. I'm replenishing my financial cushion. I'm rebuilding my business. But I'm relating differently to money, and to the whole machine that is the financial industry. I don't hate them, but I don't really need a lot of what they have to offer, either. A mortgage? Yes. Buying anything at 25% interest? No thanks! Life is simpler, and more importantly, easier to live. I have this book to thank for it.

I bought the skinny, big-type, lots-of-airspace Living Well with Bad Credit while researching new info I could incorporate into financial education classes I'm creating for the credit union I work for. Usually when I pick up new books like this, I'll use them as door prizes when we hold "How to Build Your Credit" seminars -- but I can't even give this one away, because so much of the advice is just so bad! Much of the book is two Hollywood types nattering away, looking to make the reader go ha-ha-ha.

In fact, I found the entire tome just downright insulting to one's intelligence -- and a slap in the face of people who are in the very real and very painful, back-against-the-wall situation of having badly damaged credit.

(pg 44, giving advice on who might hire you without doing a background credit check: "...You can probably become a farm laborer, lifeguard, or a stripper without a credit check, or you could sell watches on Times Square, or... well, have you ever considered becoming a mime?

"CHRIS: A mime? Did we really just write that?
"GEOFF: Oh, I'm crazy for suggesting people become a mime, but you'e the man with the plan for telling people they should become a stripper or sell watches on Times Square...
"CHRIS: You are right. You are so cool. I wish I was you.
"GEOFF: But of course.
"CHRIS: Stop rewriting what I wrote! Folks, I didn't write that Geoff was cool.
"GEOFF: What you wrote was unprintable! (There is a struggle.)"

That entire exchange occupies nearly the entire bottom half of page 44. (The book averages about 3 - 4 paragraphs to the page.) Here's another:

Their chapter on "Good Housing with Bad Credit" starts with this: "People can live in creative ways -- and there's no better example of how than surfing through TV channels or checking out old television series online. For instance, Jim Rockford, the detective from the 1970's series, The Rockford Files, lived in a mobile home, but he did so in a trailer park community on the beach. Rockford, who always seemed to be behind on bills and was once audited, clearly couldn't afford an actual house on the beach, but he probably didn't mind the cramped quarters of his trailer, because his location was so pristine. Or think of how all of the friends on Friends were rooming with each other in order to lower their rent costs. The Fonz lived in a room over the garage at the Cunningham's, which saved him money..." that block of text is the entirety of page 55, and on 56 they continue on to share info about the living quarters of MacGyver, Quincy, and Sonny Corbett -- and that The Flintstones lived in a cave, and the cast of Gilligan's Island lived in grass huts.

Gee! Nice to have the meander down TVLand's real estate row -- but it does strike me that NONE OF THESE EXAMPLES ARE ACTUAL LIVING HUMAN BEINGS! But what else would you expect from a TV/Hollywood writer with bad credit, who is one of the authors of the book? Blathering about TV characters from 30-40 years ago is a lot easier than doing any actual research.

If you want to spend your $12.95 to read these two financial know-nothings try to one-up each other with cute gag lines, this is a great book for you -- because the CREDIT-RELATED info they included seems to be the type that was collected via Googling over the course of a weekend.

It's a lazy and exploitative "Google-the-research" book.

I really enjoyed this book. There were alot of things I did not know that I learned through this book. I've not really had a credit problem before until the market turned and I lost my job. It helped me to make a few decisions that were needed.

I bought this book thinking I wanted to buy a house. This book really puts viewing your financial "life" as your life into perspective. I definitely have done many of the tips in this book (by default of having no other choice). They give great advice how to get around credit checks and how to handle having bad credit in different situations. Its written thoughtfully and with wit and humor. I would definitely recommend this book.

A low credit rating isn't the end of the world. "Living Well with bad Credit: Buy a House, Start a Business, and Even Take a Vacation No Matter How Low Your Credit Score" is a guide to overcoming the dilemma of a poor credit score. With plenty of tips and tricks for conquering one's poor credit and still getting what you want and need done in spite of it, "Living Well with Bad Credit" is a strong pick for readers who have bad credit but still want to live life.

The best way for me to describe this book is....well....I've heard it all before.

If you've read five quality personal finance books before, you don't have to read this one.

But, if you are new to learning about anything and everything personal finance related and you have tons of debt, this is the book to read.

It wasn't worth whatI spent for it and I would have returned it if I had the original shipping package