"If I think I'm going to be late, I'll send it overnight," said Guerrero who now has three credit cards - all with balances under $100.

After ALL that he still uses credit cards and is cutting it close making payments on time? What is it going to take to just cut the things up and start using a debit card?

i agree...don't know why he has to keep cutting it close like that. I get paid every 2 weeks and since I pay my bills online, I put some towards my credit cards right away. It's always more than the minimum so in case I can't make the rest of payments on the balance at the end of the month, i at least already made a payment already.

@mefinney: In today's world of FICO scores it's pretty much a non-starter to not have a credit card. I mean technically you can go without a great credit score, but it makes life so much easier, and not just in the financial world... employers are running credit checks on people now, as are insurance companies.

I've been where this teacher has been in my past. It took me sealing the damn cards in an envelope and placing them in a small fire safe I had. But I stopped when it got to $8k. I could not imagine staring down some $60k of CC debt.

It does seem like he has not totally broken the habit as MEFINNEY points out.

FICO SHMICO. I've never had a credit card, and whatever weird magic number results from that hasn't prevented me from doing anything --- including buying a house --- except one time, when it apparently kept me from getting good terms on a store credit card. Thanks, FICO score! That was a close one!

Do any Consumerist readers have non-apocryphal stories about getting turned down for a job because of credit scores?

Having four wives probably didn't help.