[kcsvti2121]

Firms are looking for discriminators because often the folks doing the hiring aren't really trained in the art of conducting an interview. It's just something they're asked to do once in a while over and above their normal duties.

Firms don't want to shell out the extra funds to get people who are qualified to inteview people even though to do so more than pays for itself. So the folks who are stuck doing the interviewing look for these so called character indicators.

The best move to make is to simply get a credit card through your bank and impose a restrictive minimum balance on yourself. Most of us have some activity we engage in on a fairly regular basis and, typically that activity entails spending money.

Use your credit card to pay for the activity and then immediately, or as soon thereafter as possible, pay the entire balance. If you bank on line this is simply too easy to NOT do. It just becomes a monthly bill like your others but, you're simultaneously maintaining solid credit activity.

Not the smoothest of segue's but this bears mentioning. If you're married and your spouse is paying the bills be alert for significant emotional events in his/her life. Especially events that take on a life of their own and take some time to work themselves out. DO NOT assume the event isn't causing him/her to start losing it and dropping the ball on things he/she is normally very much on top of.

I had a similar experience and my spouse was about as organized and anal retentive when it came to keeping things on the home front squared away as anyone you might expect to meet. For the sake of brevity I'll spare you the details. Just about everything was in my name and because of the turmoil she was experiencing she lost control of the family finances and, as a result, a lot of bills stopped getting paid.

By the time I found out it was too late. My credit score was knocked back into the upper 500's. This was about 20 months ago. I took over the finances myself and have managed to get my combined credit score average up to just over 700. Not fun.