Julie grew up with four brothers all who rode motorcycles for recreation and from point A to point B.  She had written motorcycles her whole childhood – from the big Harley Davidson hogs, to street machines of Julie’s brothers’ she used to ride all day (she didn’t think it was a Honda Gold Wing) there was no question about it – Julie wanted to have her own Harley Davidson.

The Harley Davidson in question would cost Julie just under $40,000 which was $40,000 too much for her and it was going to take an effort just to scrape up a down payment because Julie was not exactly frugal or careful with your money.

She decided that she would ask her mother for a down payment on her Harley Davidson (on the motorcycle loan required).  When she did ask her mother for the loan down payment she was flatly denied.  This was no surprise to Julie as she knew her mother never liked any of her children riding motorcycles in the first place.

Julie then went to her father and asked for a down payment to be used towards her $40,000 motorcycle loan and he said he would do what he could.  Julie’s father was separated from her mother now (for over seven years) and he was the parent who encouraged Julie and her brothers to take up the sport a motorcycling.

He didn’t make much money but really want to help Julie realize her dream of owning her own Harley Davidson, so he let her know he would do what he could do and that he would get back to her in the next week.

Unfortunately for Julie she was just now considering the reality of getting a motorcycle loan after she had let her emotions  finally overcome her natural hesitancy to go into debt.  Like we always say at California Loan Find, you need to move toward your debt slowly, carefully, and frugally.

So now as the initial excitement of buying her own Harley Davidson was becoming mired in the details of the funding – and yes this was discouraging to Julie – she still held onto her dream and had comfort in knowing that her credit rating was good.

As a matter of fact Julie’s credit rating was too good in that she had never had a credit card or handled any kind of credit at all.  She always paid in cash and always paid upfront without ever taking on debt – and since she was single and young she had never owned a home or made mortgage payments.

She never bothered to use a credit card from department store, grocery store, or even from a major bank in Modesto. While her parents offered to get her a MasterCard at one point, she declined on that offer as well.

It is not good to have absolutely no credit rating on the go.  You need to be establishing your credit rating at an early age so that in the future banks can make a decision on whether or not to give you a loan.

In this case, Julie’s motorcycle loan at a principal amount of $32,000 was a lot of money for the bank to be lending when she had no credit rating whatsoever.  I should note that Julie also had proof that she had been with the same employer in Modesto for over 7 years.

Unfortunately Julie lived in an apartment with two other roommates whose names were on the utility bills, the phone bills, and the rental agreement(s).  This creates a situation whereby the banks have zero track record on the borrowers ability to make their installments.

So you can see where we are going here – Julie really didn’t have much of a chance of being approved for her $35,000 motorcycle loan and it was coming down to the point where she would have to call the money in from a family member, a friend, an employer, or get a cosigner.

Continued…

You may think this is strange, but if you have ever worked at a bank you would know how compartmentalized banks can be, and understand that those in the banking industry can be sadly inept when it comes to handling their own finances.

When I first started writing on CLF I was very excited to be contributing to a team effort and being part of a good team of experienced finance writers. However, I have been pleasantly exposed to some of the other writers on the Internet who are consistently contributing to the conversation.

Because our theme here is based around the practice of borrowing money, and leveraging money, we are seeing traffic from a lot of people trying to borrow money when they are in dire straits. It has been heartbreaking to see what people are actually typing into the search engines – searches like; “help! desperate for a bad credit personal loan because of divorce”. Sometimes it’s medical bills or their home burnt down without insurance. Sometimes it’s people struggling still in New Orleans from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

In some cases people are victims of plain bad luck, and in other cases people don’t have any kind of knowledge regarding how to manage their money. If you are one of the people in the latter example, you can use some of these free online resources to learn about money and personal financing.

I remember a time not long ago when the only way to read about personal financing was to read books on the subject, and most people wouldn’t invest in a book about money management. Those times have changed because of the Internet and now you can learn about personal money management free of charge. This is exciting to me.

As part of my voluntary involvement at California Loan Find I visit other money management blogs and take part in their discussions. I like that even more that writing my own posts sometimes, and I would like to list just a few of the blogs that I have been visiting and reading. You can learn from these writers, and I hope you spend some time on their blogs.

Make comments and take part in the discussion to get the most out of your experience. You can learn so many ways to get your personal financing under control. Try and keep an open mind as you read because you will be exposed to some really good advice – and you will be asking yourself, “wow, I’ve never thought of doing that, or “I never thought of it that way”.

I also encourage you find a good blog feed reader, and add some of their RSS feeds to your brand new RSS feed reader. This way you can stay up to date and keep your education going.

I would like to list some personal financing blogs for you to discover, read, and maybe even become an active participant. Don’t be afraid to ask questions because there is no such thing as a stupid or embarrassing question. Furthermore, you will find that the writers and readers are generally kind.

So here goes – my first list of great personal financing blogs. There are so many that I won’t list them all here – just ten for now. I hope to get around to all of them over the time though. I have linked to some of their latest posts of interest.

Great Places To Learn About Money Management

1. What To Do When Relatives Ask For Loans – this piece is excellent and I read it on the Free Money Finance blog. Take special note that they are referencing another resource on the same subject where you can read even more on the subject.

2. Good Time To Think About Refinancing Your Mortgage: I might save $50,000! – this is on the My Money Blog.

3. Listening to the Sage Financial Advice of my Grandmother – this is on the Financial Hack blog and it has some beautiful thoughts and was written by “Beks”

4. Don’t Tell Me Your Money Problems – written by David Mitchell at PFAdvice.com – the sad reality of people venting their financial problems.

5. X Ways To Save Money With Your Credit Card -  this is all about what the title says and it was written by Marcel and posted on Financial Dominance

6. Applying For a Credit Card – The Credit Card Bill of Rights – this reveals some of the new laws on the books to protect consumers in the United States, and a lot more. Another good blog called the Digeratilife.

7. Five Tricks I Used to Pay Off My Credit Card – this was written by Stephanie at Poorer Than You. There is a lot of good information for college students worth reading.

8. – When Is It Ok To Spend a Little? – this was written by Nicole over at The Budgeting Babe which is a Blogger blog, which is a great place for you to start your own blog for free and with ease.

9. – 5 Tips To Help Your Bank Account Survive the Holiday Season in Uncertain Economic Times - this was written at 22Dollars. Very good writer here just like the others in my first list of personal finance writers.

10 – Store-Brand Grocery Items are 74% Cheaper Than Name-Brand – this is a perfect example of another good writer than give you tips on how to save money on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

Happy reading. I encourage you to read all of these article and browse around their blogs for scads of good information. I will post ten more when the mood arises.

Usually the simple form has little information, but we ask them to give their email so we can contact them later. If we can find them a loan, or can’t get them approved, we ask by email if they would be willing to take a phone call, and tell us their story. If they tell us their story, we ask them if we can post it on this blog. We ask if they want their names changed, and other private information to protect their privacy. Once we have all their information and unique story, we then post is and get their approval.

If you live in California and you would like to share your story and your dream(s), we would be happy to post it here at California Loan Find. We will protect your privacy at all times, and tell your story with taste and class. If you don’t like the story, you can edit yourself, and we will amend it to suit you.

Some would say the money and loans is a boring subject, and wonder how we can keep writing about, but I think it’s very exciting and dynamic subject. Money is one of the biggest factors (some would argue THE biggest factor) in our lives, and so much of our dreams and nightmares revolve around the lack of money or the abundance of money.

So far our case studies are fairly positive,  but many cases are quite sad and frankly depressing. We will tell all of these stories here at CLF, and look forward to reading your comments on them. You can even give advice to some of these soon to be approved borrowers, or soon to be declined borrowers.

We’ll be talking to you later. Have a new post cranking up for this weekend – see you then.