44 Thingz - Life's 44 Important Areas of Wisdom

Some have said years ago that:   A Credit Score of 760 is the new 680 ! Some have also said that 700 is now considered a "good" credit score by FICO , the company that scores people's credit. These Scores Imply: You need at least a 700 credit score to be considered to gave good credit.  680 is only ok, and may have been considered good before or near the housing bubble bust of 2008, but not any longer.  In fact, 760 and above is probably considered very good credit and 790-800, or above, is probably considered excellent credit.  850 is the highest credit score, and 300 the lowest.  Credit is of course most important for your mortgage rate and that means up to 30 years or more of rate consequences based on your credit score. How Do Credit Companies Weigh Credit Score Financial Factors? One source said this : "how an agency determines your score: Payment history and bankruptcy 31% Credit card debt 30% Length of credit history 15% Type...

You might be thinking at this point... What on earth does "Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt" mean? It's really simple. It means that if someone who is naked offers you his shirt, would you believe him? Would you think they could "pull it off" pardon the pun? Of course not! The title of this post, and the lesson, is based off a book I read a long time ago by Harvey Mackay entitled Beware The Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt. The book is more about business and delivering more than what you promise and other similar topics, but I am going to use the words for a life lesson learned, also known as a lifehack . The whole point of this life lesson learned  is: A naked man does not have a shirt to give! If he had one to give, he would not be naked, and may not take it off to give it to you! This is like someone offering you something they don't have! Sound too good to be true? The fact is this: No amount of kindness or sincerity ...

Why Can't We Do Better for Our School Teachers and Their Salaries and Pensions? When I hear about underpaid teachers (with arguably one of the most important jobs -- teaching our future generation) getting less than what they deserve in both salary and now pensions, this makes me very concerned. Also, when I read about how the national average rating for  how well teacher pensions are managed gets a C- , this also has me concerned.  I think we should all be a bit concerned with how yet in another area such as this, many in the middle class are getting the shaft, yet again. Teachers must have what they need to succeed so that the children they teach and mentor can also succeed.  Teachers should also not have to worry about pension funds that are at risk, borrowed against, don't return much interest, have expensive management fees as 401K plans, or otherwise nickel and dime them out of their small salaries. In fact, pensions should never have gone to 401K type o...