OH NO!!! The Price of Beer is going up.

The cost of a beer is going up. Brewers across the world are hiking prices to compensate for lower sales volumes and higher commodity costs. This past Tuesday Anheuser-Busch made public its plans to raise prices. MillerCoors announced it is also raising prices but the reasons they site are in line with their company's regular fall increases not the economic environment.

Industry experts expected this but these companies will only be able to raise prices so much due to the fact that the consumer will not take lightly to price increases in the current economic climate. In fact Heineken will ind a tough environment to keep raising their prices as one of their major competitors (Corona) has said it will not increase prices.

Heineken and Corona are struggling more than Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors because consumers are choosing the less expensive brands. This will lead to a very tricky balancing act, to be able to raise prices to offset costs but not to lose push consumers to another brand of beer or from any purchase. This all comes at a tough time for Micro-brewers as they were enjoying increased market share but their higher prices might push beer drinkers back to lower priced beers like Bud Lite & Coors Light.

What goes into a FICO and Credit Score

Your credit score is based on several factors:

1. Payment history - The biggest, about 35 percent of a FICO score. Any late payments or overdrafts will hurt your credit score for several years.

2. Amount owed - about 30 percent, This figure compares the amount you owe to your available credit. an example is somebody who has a $3,000 balance and a $3,000 credit limit. they're maxed out and will look worse than someone who owes $5,000 but has cards with $50,000 worth of limits. This is also the reason that you don't necessarily want to close accounts after you pay them off.

3. Length of history - about 15 percent, the longer your perfect record of on-time payments, the better your score.

4. New credit -- about 10 percent, constantly shopping for credit such as credit cards or bank loans can hurt your score because it makes you look desperate.

5. Miscellaneous-- about 10 percent is for a mix of credit cards, auto loans, and other types of credit.

Real Life Advice for Increasing your Credit Score

Borrowing money today requires a higher credit score than it did two years ago. You pretty much need a 750 FICO score today to get the same treatment that a 700 score would of gotten you back then. So what is one to do in today's ever changing credit market.

1)Learn Your Score - You have three FICO scores, one from each of the three credit bureaus; Equifax, Experian, Trans Union.

2)Look For Mistakes - 1 in 3 people who pull their credit reports finds a mistake. If you do find one request a correction.

3)Debt To Credit Ratio - You should try not to have more than 20% debt to credit. Which means that if you have $10,000 in open credit you shouldn't have more than $2,000 in debt. You also should not have more the 50% debt on one single card, better to spread it out.

Helping to Fix Your Credit Score
Online simulators can show you how to increase your credit score.

1)Creditkarma.com - This simulator will calculate how your score might change if you do things such as take on more debt or pay down existing debt. What will happen if you close your old credit cards or make late payments. You will need your social security number but the firm states that it does not store this information. If you would rather not submit your social then there are 2 more sites for you to check out.

2) Credit.com and myFICO.com - These sites will calculate how your FICO score will change by reducing a loan balance or making late payments. You don't need your social security number but you will have to enter your debt and payment history.

At the end of the day you need to take responsibility for looking out for yourself and managing your finances. This info is just one tool to help you do that.

Car Shopping with a Budget

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The good news is that I have sold the Ford Focus and have purchased a new vehicle, A 2007 Nissan Altima. The bad is that it isn't the coveted Mustang I wanted but I am happy with my purchase. The ugly is what I went through shopping for cars. Thankfully I finally found a salesman I was very comfortable with, Jim K at 112 Nissan. He made the long grueling process easy. On the other end of the spectrum was the Sharks over at Atlantic Nissan. I would NEVER recommend them. They tried every trick in the book like I don't have a computer with Internet connection to know what the car I was looking at retailed at or knew their tricks.



The new Car





Here are a few things I did that helped me to get a fair price for my new vehicle.

1) I bought 2 years old and got a car that retails for mid to high 20's for mid teens
2) Secured financing before shopping
3) Researched the cars I was looking for at Edmunds.com, KBB.com And NADA.com
4) Didn't negotiate the trade in sold it for more money privately
5) Put no money down as my loan was for 5% and I feel I can get 8% return on that money in the market
6) The Internet is such a valuable tool to find your price point on your new car and selling your old car

I want to hear from you how you got a good deal for your vehicle