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I just ran across this article over at CNN Money. The article highlights 10 families that have chosen to quit using their credit cards in an effort to get out of debt. Each of the families has a similar, yet different story, but simply no longer use their cards. Overall the article isn’t as much of an interesting read because of the validity of cutting out credit cards, it’s worth reading the “Methods” and the “Glitches“…

• Article Link: CNNMoney.com - They cut out their credit cards

The Glitches: When Matt tried to buy a $5,700 PC online with a debit card, he ran into his $2,000-a-day spending limit. Because he has good credit, his bank lifted it.

Uhm…. OMG?!?!?! He’s got me speaking in internet chat-acronyms. Why in the sam hellmans mayonnaise did he need a $5,700 pc?

The Method: They closed their accounts, drew up their first budget and spent the next four years erasing the debt. “If we want something, we pay for it in cash,” says Suzi. “If we can’t afford it, we do without or wait.”

I would be leary of this. Even if you aren’t planning to use the cards, keeping them helps you keep a longer credit history. A shorter age will hurt your FICO score which will still have a negative effect on your finances even if you don’t want to use credit cards. Higher mortgage rates, car insurance rates, etc…

I guess I’ve always considered having credit cards a blessing because of the rewards. I’ve never even considered carrying a balance and I don’t have a spending “problem”. So, for me to say that these people’s decisions are wrong, just isn’t fair. However, I just hope that they are able to fix the root of the problem and not the byproduct, which is the overspending.

What do you think? Is it the ease of using a credit card that gives people trouble or some other issue surfacing in the form of overspending?

It isn’t often that I am compelled to read more editorial commentary on the mortgage/housing issues in this country right now. However, I came across this article over at Yahoo Finance that I found interesting.

Yahoo’s Money and Happiness Expert Laura Rawley gives us the breakdown of how events brought the mortgage industry to where it is today. Unlike many other articles on the topic, she has chosen to use prose and I think it is a very creative and entertaining way to describe the chronology.

Excerpt from the Expert:

“Once upon a time there was a greedy young man with shiny wingtips and important degrees. His father, an advisor to the king, had paid the young man’s way through an Ivy League college and got him a job managing the village’s pension investments.

The greedy young man went to his magic mirror and said, “Mirror, mirror, I’m at the top of my field, I’m entitled to a higher yield. I’d like to earn that yield today, so I get a bonus with my pay. Tell me now, because here’s the thing — I’m really entitled to earn more than the king.”

The mirror replied, “Call Wall Street please, and invest in mortgage-backed securities. Don’t worry whether the yield will last, this way you’ll get your bonus fast.”

And the greedy young man went on television, where the media declared him a genius.”

I am a little surprised that I didn’t think to post this earlier on as I am all for helping others have a better experience online, but it’s as simple as… I forgot. Anyhoo, as many of you probably already know, email spider programs are similar to search engines. The spiders scour the internet by hopping from page to page looking to “siphon” your email right off of your blog. This is why it is important to not create “mailto” links using your email address.

My point to this post goes one step further. As a financial blogger, there are times where I will have a link that is for a referral. The URL for the link may look something like this:

http://www.coolbank.com/refer.ext?e=my_exposed@email.here.com

As you can see, my email address is shown in plain text in that link and it would be vulnerable to being snagged by an email harvesting spider.

Referring other people is win/win - So, how do you avoid it?
The answer is in using a script (small program) to hide the real link and create an association to it. Since, I typically prefer to write my scripts in PHP. I will use that for my example below. However, there are many other programming languages you can use to accomplish the same thing.

The Almighty Code
The code itself need only reside in a simple file. Here on my blog I named the file link.php.
To keep my web server from executing the file, I have named the sample script link.txt so that you will be able to download it. You can grab the link.txt file from here. Once you have the file, review the comments for information on the necessary changes that you will need to make to it before uploading it to your web server.

I think my script is ready, now what?
Now you simply upload the file to the main Wordpress directory on your web server. Do not upload it to the theme directory if you have one. Once the script is uploaded, it is ready to use. It is not a plugin that has to be activated. Simply start using links that point to the link referral script and, as long as your associations are set up correctly, you’ll be successfully keeping your email address out of the “spiders” mouth, so to speak.

Do you need some help with the script? Feel free to leave a comment.

So, this post is completely unfinancial, but I’m excited about it nonetheless. My wife and I fell in love with the music from Cas Haley when we first saw him on the show, America’s Got Talent. We waited patiently after each show for the next weeks episode to come around, so we could hear him again. After the season was over, we searched endlessly online in the hope of finding his music to no avail.

Well, tonight I just happened to remember it and I checked online again. Cas has his own web site now! It even has samples from his new CD! Loving it! If you like smooth reggae or just acoustic guitar, you will enjoy Cas’s music.

Check out his web site at www.CasHaley.com!