Okay, let’s see how you might play the debt game. Read the following situations and see what you’d recommend based on what you know about debt.

(1) You need $4,500 now. It is an emergency. What will you do? What if it isn’t an emergency how might this change your strategy?

Ideas: An emergency requires fast action. If you don’t have the cash, you need to get some, and credit cards or a personal loan from an FFA would likely be the source. If it is not an emergency, sell something you own of that value or get a part-time job for a month or two.

(2) You need over $5,000 within four weeks for an important opportunity but not an emergency.

Ideas: Work a second job, sell your car for a while and take public transportation.

(3) You know you’re going to be late paying a loan.

Ideas: You see where you can find the money to pay the loan immediately; you call the creditor and say you’ll be late on the payment; call the creditor when you pay the bill or when you discover that you will not make the date you promised to pay.

(4) You are preparing to buy a home.

Ideas: Study the housing market in your area; ask friends about their agents and if they would recommend her to you; get to know an appraiser to find out the inside opinion on preferred areas of town; get preapproved for a loan; shop the best mortgage companies.

We all play the debt game because there are times we must borrow to meet challenges and take advantage of opportunities. The important thing to remember is that as long as you are controlling the amount of your debt and paying it off in a timely way, you are ahead of the game.

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All games have scores. In the game of debt, the score is your credit report. You need to know what your score is and if it is accurate. Your credit report is also known as a credit file or credit history. Almost everyone has one, whether you know it or not. At one time or another, individuals or businesses have received information about you, including your name and Social Security number. They do not need to ask your permission to look at your credit report, but they do have to pay the reporting agency to do so.

Credit bureaus or credit reporting agencies are not governmental agencies, they are businesses in the private sector that collect information on you. Their customers are banks, finance companies, credit card companies, mortgage companies, merchants, landlords, and even schools anyone who has a need to know about your reputation in the way you use money, good or bad.

When I was a little girl in Iowa and my grandma was trading her eggs for groceries, storekeepers often had accounts open for people to buy groceries and other things the general store sold. If I went to the store to get some things for my mother, Grandpa Jackson (as he was called by all the kids in town) would just write it on my parents’ account and my dad would go in and pay up the account when he got paid. Everyone in the township knew everyone else and their business, so storekeepers knew who they could extend these open accounts to and who they wouldn’t.

People made businesses of gathering information on people in communities, and merchants would have a database to share so they could determine the credit-worthiness of those who wanted credit extended to them. A credit application form came from that idea, and as there became more and more need to see information about someone, files were gleaned from public records such as tax liens, bankruptcies, judgments, and anything anyone reported against the individual.

Today, there are thousands of credit bureaus collecting all sorts of information on consumers. Much of it is entered manually, and the error rate is huge. In March 1999, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group reported that 70 percent of credit reports in their sample contained mistakes or errors of some kind and 29 percent contained serious errors that could be used to deny credit; 19 percent of the credit reports contained accounts that could not be identified or did not belong to the consumer; and 26 percent contained credit accounts that were closed by the consumer but listed as open.

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