Make a Budget: Mommy Ruined Tommy’s Credit

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Throughout my whole life, my mother has been horrible about debt. She always seemed to be in one fix or another. But the Train Wreck really happened when my mom’s debt problems started spilling over onto my brother. Too bad, she couldn’t make a budget.

My mother really wanted a new computer. She’s always been a gadget gal, and her laptop was starting to really show its age. She couldn’t afford a new computer outright, and her credit was in the toilet. So she turned to my brother, who was probably 20 years old at the time.

The idea was, my brother would “buy” the new computer using his clean credit, and my mom would make all the payments. Can you see where this is headed? My mother simply couldn’t make a budget. I probably could have seen it, if I hadn’t been 13 year old at the time, and thus not paying any attention at all.

So my brother bought the computer, and my mother tried to make payments on it, but eventually fell behind. And took my brother’s credit score with her. To this day, over 6 years later, my brother has not been able to pull his credit score up to where it was.

As a side note, the computer, which my mom bought from an infomercial, was complete junk. It had all sorts of problems, and eventually it was passed down to me. I wiped the hard-drive, but true evil cannot be purged through reformatting alone. I put up with the computer’s fiendish ways for three years, until I received the next hand-me-down computer.

Which I’m still using, by the way.

Moral of the story? Do. Not. Put. Your. Credit. Score. In. The. Hands. Of. Someone. Else. Oh, and don’t buy computers off of the television.

Train Wreck Tuesdays are a weekly post of horrible financial mistakes. They are posted anonymously. Submit your story; if you’re selected, you get a free personal finance book. The best comment gets the same prize!