| How to Build a Better Credit Rating
If you've ever applied for a credit card, a personal loan, or insurance, there's a file about you. This file is known as your credit report. It is chock full of information on where you live, how you pay your bills, and whether you've been sued, arrested, or filed for bankruptcy. Consumer reporting companies sell the information in your report to creditors, insurers, employers, and other businesses with a legitimate need for it. They use the information to evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, or a lease. Having a good credit report means it will be easier for you to get loans and lower interest rates. Lower interest rates usually translate into smaller monthly payments. Nevertheless, newspapers, radio, TV, and the Internet are filled with ads for companies and services that promise to erase accurate negative information in your credit report in exchange for a fee.
Now you know the score Now you know the score
Read a book on business startups or visit the small-biz portion of any bank website and you'll find a trove of financial and managerial advice. But you won't find out what I learned in a casual chat with a banker last year. In the real world of automated loan approvals, he said, your business plan counts for zip. What really matters in determining whether you get the bank loan you need is your personal credit rating. "One of the great myths about banking," said the banker, "is that we won't talk to you unless you have a five-pound business plan." In reality, the banks are more interested in seeing how you've run your personal finances. They figure there's a better chance of you repaying your business loan every month if you have a positive personal credit record than if you have a surefire formula for turning seawater into gold.
Carlisle neighbors act globally
As a 14-year-old boy, Michael Ansara participated in a boycott of a Wonder Bread factory in Roxbury, helping persuade the company to begin hiring black workers. Later, Ansara protested against the war in Vietnam and was active in the antiapartheid movement, calling for the divestment of American banks from South Africa. Now 60 and the president of a customer service company, Ansara has three children and lives in Carlisle. And he's still an activist. In the spring of 2005, Ansara networked with parents on his son's soccer team and acquaintances on town committees and formed a group of 20 Carlisle couples who wanted to lend money to black people in South Africa. First there was a potluck dinner in the Ansara home. And last October, the group made its first contribution -- a total of $29,000 in loan guarantees to help South Africans start their own businesses.
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