When people talk about money, you hear things like, “I’m a spender.” Or, “I’m a saver.” I think I’m a little bit of both. I was a saver before getting married, and even had some stock from my company tucked away for a rainy day. Once my wife and I needed a house and had kids though, my rainy day had come. It was nice to know when we shopped for mortgages that we had a down payment thanks to that stock I had purchased. I know that not everyone out looking at loans has a down payment, and it made a difference for us in the rate and terms that we got. Once the mortgage lender determined that all of our current accounts were in order we were off shopping for curtains and home insurance.

That was 4 or 5 moves ago, and thanks to the equity we built up in our last home, we were able to build a new home, which we moved into last May. One of the best pieces of debt advice we got was to not be afraid of using our credit cards, as long as we used them wisely. By that I mean that a little debt is good, as long as you pay it off in a timely fashion. Lenders like to see that you’ve used credit wisely and paid off debts in advance. Instead of closing old accounts, we paid them off and left them open, to show that we have willpower too.