We've always had excellent credit and I work hard to keep it that way. I pay our bills FIRST ... then buy groceries IF there's anything left over. It's just the way I am (and it shows in our FICO scores).

We became debt free in February (paid off the mortgage) and my FICO score actually dropped! WTF? It was extremely high when I OWED money, but dropped once I did NOT owe money!

Well, I just bought a dang motorhome for more than what I paid for my frigging HOUSE and my FICO score jumped UP by 8 points! Last week we bought Lynn's car and I just checked her score, it jumped UP by 4 points just last night!

We became debt free a couple months ago and our score dropped, but now have $180,000 of debt and our combined FICO scores immediately jumped UP by 12 points ... and will probably climb a bit more once we make a few on-time payments.

It's a WEIRD system IMHO.

Yeah, I know ... the debt-free high sure didn't last long.