Consumers to Banks: Take this Card and Shove it

Consumers are unhappy with their banks. No surprise there. What is remarkable is the tangible way in which they are expressing their unhappiness. Credit card debt declined 13.1% in August. This was the 11th straight month of decline, an all-time record. Read more

Ally Bank Foolishly Losing Our Business

GMAC Bank has re-branded itself as Ally Bank. Mr. ToughMoneyLove is not impressed. The reason? Ally Bank has not changed it’s new account policies and fixation on credit scores. Because of that, we are moving the rest of our money away from Ally/GMAC to a bank that values customers with money more than customers with credit scores.

First, some history of how Ally Bank earned the “fool of finance” designation. Read more

Banks Teaching the Futility of Chasing Credit Scores

Banks and other lenders are now teaching many of us a lesson.  The lesson is the futility of focusing on credit scores as a financial planning strategy. Read more

Reasons Why it is More Fun and Logical to Monitor Net Worth not Credit Scores

Today’s post is about tracking your personal net worth and your credit score as an enjoyable activity and as measure of financial success.  This article addresses the relative merits in a personal financial plan of monitoring your net worth as compared to your credit score.  In that sense, this post can be considered to be Part 3 of my Campaign Against Credit Score Obsession.  (Here are Part 1 and Part 2 if you want to read them first.) Read more

My Tough Love Campaign Against Credit Score Obsession (Part 1)

I have observed that too many Americans are now obsessed with their respective credit scores, sometimes also referred to as a FICO score.  Based on a recent development involving one of my sons (and his lack of any credit score), I have decided to publish a series of posts about credit score obsession and how it distorts money behavior in a mostly negative way.  In turn, this causes people to focus on incorrect targets in their financial plan.
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What is “Tough Money Love” in Personal Finance?

There are hundreds if not thousands of websites covering personal finance issues.  Most are hosted by vendors trying to sell you something.  Others dish out conventional advice that can be found in any personal finance book or regurgitated by financial planners.  Still others offer a steady stream of fluffy  affirmations, feel good pep talks, and cheerleading for folks with serious and chronic money/behavior problems.  (If you need affirmations for bad money behavior, I recommend that you visit the Women in Red Forum on MSN Money or watch the Oprah show.)
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