pishadoot

Agreed!

The pain with email maskers is when a service doesn't accept the email as valid.... I have 2-3 I use. I start with blur (abine/ironvest, whatever you call it these days) and if it doesn't work I go to my bench warmers.

Dang, sorry to hear that. How much did your score dip? Anything around 25, maybe up to 50 points is probably not a critical issue. Dips like that, and especially ones that relate to credit checks (like when you're shopping for a loan or a new card) go away in a couple months (I'm not sure about your case. Without active credit utilization you're an "unknown" factor, which is risky to the lenders). I'm not even sure why your score dips when someone does a hard credit pull - overall my frustration with the system is the lack of transparency and the fact that there's zero regulation or accountability for the credit bureaus.

Best practice is to open a no-fee card with points/cash back that aligns with your normal spending habits, use it for general purchases that you already make today, and pay the balance off in full every month after you get your statement.

As long as you don't carry a balance it won't cost you a penny in interest, and you'll reap the card benefits and improve your score by establishing and maintaining a good credit history.

The thing is, MOST people carry a balance. That's why credit companies are able to afford giving you 5% cash back, travel bonuses, etc etc - just the fact that those things exist, on top of all the overhead required to maintain/issue credit cards tells you just how many people are carrying a balance and giving interest to the companies.

If you have the discipline to not charge more than you earn and to not miss payments, you'll get all the benefits without any of the costs. On top of having card bonuses (5% on groceries adds up!) you get several other benefits, some of which I will list here:

-your money is shielded in part by the credit company. When you charge a card, you're not spending YOUR money (yet), you're spending Capital ONE/Chase/whoever's money. What that means is that if a business does wrong by you (sells a faulty product, doesn't provide the service you paid for) you can issue a charge-back. That's a pretty serious thing, if companies get a high number of charge backs they can lose their ability to receive credit payments. (Chargebacks can be useful but they're not always the best option). Also, and maybe more importantly, your BANK account information is shielded from all the businesses that suck at keeping your information safe. Your credit card gets compromised, you see your statement and somebody's buying gas and fast food with your credit card, the company will remove the charges and issue you a new card - if someone gets hold of your debit card or your bank login, it's MUCH harder to get your money back, if not impossible.

-in case of an emergency you can carry a balance - it offers some cushion from financial ruin. The downside is that now you're paying interest, but if it's a choice between paying interest for a couple months vs not having a working vehicle, or not being able to pay for an emergency vet bill, the interest is worth it imo.

-cards have all kinds of benefits besides the flagship cash back/points. Extended warranties, concierge services - every card comes with a booklet of other benefits that most people don't read, but you really should. I've used extended warranties several times alone when for example something breaks 26 months after I bought it, but the warranty expired at 24 months and the card extends the warranty a 3rd year.

If you do get a card you will probably have a fairly low balance at first. Couple thousand dollars, so it's really easy to get over that 20% utilization fast if you're not paying attention - which can hurt your score! Utilization doesn't carry nearly as much weight as paying your bills on time and the length of your credit history, but it does matter. So be mindful of that. If it's working out for you then six months later open another card that gives you different benefits (a card for utilities vs one for groceries, or one for travel, etc) and start breaking your bills up so you can maximize benefits. Some cards give you a cash bonus if you spend a certain amount within 90 days, so if you know you're going to make a big purchase then you can open a card, put that big purchase on it, get the $200 back or whatever, and pay it off.

Unfortunately there's no way to avoid the credit system in the USA, you're SO disadvantaged if you try to do so. Housing, loans, job applications, security clearances (Federal work), all take it into account. Best thing you can do is to make the system work for your benefit.

I don't pay anything in interest and I pay pretty much everything on credit, because I live within my means. My credit score is ace because I've been doing it for years.

If you have any questions let me know, happy to discuss.

It does not lower your credit score to pay debt off early, where did you get that idea from?

Over time if you show that you aren't delinquent on payments your score goes up. That's the vast majority of how a FICO score is calculated.

Other things that impact your credit score are the LENGTH of time you have established credit (aka don't close your oldest credit card for most people, even if it sits unused), the total amount of available unused credit compared to your income (ie if you have a ton of high credit availability cards sitting there - you could run up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and disappear to a non extradition country being a risk), and lastly your overall utilization of your available credit (ie you want to be using 10-20% of both your available credit both on individual cards ("revolving credit") and your overall total revolving credit across all your cards together).

The last one is a bit harder to explain, so here's an example:

-you have three lines of revolving credit (credit cards)

-one card has a 1000 limit, one has a 5000 limit, and one has a 10,000 limit

-ideally you're posting a balance of 200, 1000, and 1500. That's between 10-20% on each card, and it's between 10-20% of all cards in total.

Other things that impact your score (negatively) are bankruptcies, late bill payments, things in collections, and having a high debt to income ratio.

At no point will you be penalized for paying debt off early. The only thing that can possibly affect your score in that sense is if you ONLY have a loan, no revolving credit, and you pay it off - now you have no credit utilization at all, which potentially could ding you a bit, but not much. That's also not very common - most people have several credit cards and few loans, if any.

I mean, that's true if you reuse your passwords instead of using a password manager that can generate random gibberish... Which is itself a very poor habit exactly because of this very fact?

Even assuming a company follows best practices (a bold assumption that is wholly inconsistent with reality) there's ALWAYS a possibility of a breach - and it's not if, it's only when.

So, everyone should be using a password manager by default.

I like to use keepassXC personally because it's fully under my control. I don't really care for ones that are hosted by 3rd parties because that introduces more risk if they get beached, but for many people that's fine; it's more convenient for the user. To me it's important enough that I manage it all locally.

It's not a binary option. It's a spectrum. You need to be cautious while driving, which is correct. You CAN be TOO cautious, which is in itself incorrect.

Stop being a pedant.

I'm not an expert but I have five orchids in the house and they're all doing really well, so I just be doing something right - one of them was in worse shape than yours when I got it six months ago, and it's about to bloom for the first time very soon :D

All that to say, caveat this advice with the fact that the watering method/frequency might not be 100% optimal. All the products I use are listed at the end of this post.

All my orchids are potted in orchid bark, with the slitted plastic orchid pots inside of beauty pots.

I use a water bottle and thoroughly spray every orchid once a day, generally in the mornings. I use enough water to start saturating the roots (you can tell when they start to change color from white ish to a darker color). I also make sure to get the potting medium nice and wet, but not so saturated that the pot drains freely, and I want it to be dry 24 hours later so it doesn't mold. It's usually about 25-30 pumps per orchid. I have tried ice cubes in the past but I really don't like that method - very difficult to get water on all the roots.

Once weekly I do the same application method but I use a probiotic&fertilizer spray that I mix instead. I follow the quantum orchid probiotic directions to mix one gallon of liquid, and add about 1/4 teaspoon of better-gro orchid better-bloom (instead of the normal mix ratio that's 1 teaspoon per gallon, because I apply it 4x a month instead of 1x a month as the fertilizer directions state. You can use probiotic daily if you want and it won't hurt the orchids but you can definitely over-fertilize).

Trim the dead/dying parts, get it into some good fresh potting medium, and water regularly. Good chance it'll come back, but it'll look dormant for a while. If you see new leaves start to grow you're in business! Good luck.

Potting medium: https://www.ebstone.org/product/orchid-bark-fine-med/ Pots (something like this): https://www.repotme.com/collections/slotted-orchid-pot Spray bottles: https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B096LN2NBH Probiotic: https://www.repotme.com/products/quantum-orchid Fertilizer: https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B004Z8OL12

My bad, mistook your reply as being from the top level comment OP.

No.... It's not

I legitimately laughed out loud. Well done.

It sounds like you're disabled in this area, and it's unfair that the world is not more accommodating.

"Change the world to accommodate my disability and I'll quit being a hazard to people's life, limb, and property" is not an acceptable attitude.

Being cautious is correct. Being unpredictable because you're driving abnormally is super dangerous.

The reason we have a driving system is so that everyone knows that to expect from everyone else. If you operate outside of that system you're a danger to yourself and everyone else.

If you can't drive don't get behind the wheel