Credit cards first entered my life during my freshman year of college. My first plastic way of paying for things gave me a credit line of $500. The closer that I got to that maximum amount, the more the limit increased. It is now years later and I’m lucky to even have a $500 balance on my cards. I’m in debt beyond belief. Though I seem to owe everyone in the world some sort of money, I haven’t ever had problems paying my bills. I may only be able to make my minimum payments, but at least I’m able to pay anything at all. I have an excellent credit score and I intend to keep it that way.

At 26 years of age, I attempted to buy my first home. I went FHA and figured that my income would be decent enough to be approved. My mortgage consultant took all of my personal information and after doing some figuring, informed me that my debt to income ratio was too risky for any lenders to want to give me money. I was shocked. I’d never made a late payment in my entire life and had a great credit score. Read the entire debt to income ratio article.