Today, I paid some old bills.
I generally pay my bills, don’t get me wrong. I’ve had past indiscretions where bills were left forgotten on the kitchen counter, and I sometimes have to hold off on the cell phone bill until the second payday, but in general, things are taken care of. What tends to get ignored are those old bills that hang around and linger like shadow of death on my credit report (working on my future career in poetry…just go with it).
A little credit history: mine sucks. You know that time in your life when you don’t think about the future, and all you really care about is spending money and maxing a credit card out on a shopping weekend with your best friend? Maybe not all of you know what I’m talking about, but it happens, and it happened to me, and I will fully and freely admit that I was a doofus and have been paying for those little mistakes ever since.
The Felber Formerly Known as Felber went back to school this semester, and due to some loan issues he didn’t get his financial aid right away. So I swooped in with my 401k to save the day. Got the school paid and all that jazz. This week, financial aid was released, and instead of paying back my 401k, I decided to do the “borrow from Peter to pay Paul” scenario and take care of some of those old bills (the 401k is coming right out of my paycheck, so that’s going to get paid no matter what…unless I join the circus or something).
Tonight, I gathered up the stack of regular bills and the looming ones and went to town. After regular stuff, I paid off two outstanding bills that have been shadowing my credit report for a long time. I then went and actually pulled my credit report to see what else I had going on. Note that this was after pulling the house apart looking for a third bill I wanted to take care of and not being able to find it. So I thought, what the heck. I’ll just check stuff online. There, I found a couple more things I could pay off and two things to dispute.
There’s still some pretty big stuff out there that I’ll eventually have to handle, and I don’t expect my credit score to shoot up a zillion points because I paid off two bills. However, it feels so good to know that those are two companies who are no longer going to send me stuff or call me. I feel so grown up about the whole thing…kind of a rare thing for a person who tends to lean towards fun and instant gratification.
Now if I could just get off the computer to pack for a weekend in Wichita, I’d feel even more grown up.
A.
The Romance Factor 