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As I stated in an earlier post, I endured a 2 year legal battle before the lawsuit was dropped in January. I was excited but wouldn’t feel truly free until the statute of limitations expired mid-way through this month.
On Sunday, I was served with legal papers. The plaintiff has re-opened the lawsuit, added [...]

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As you probably noticed, things look a little different around here. That’s because, I’m entering into a partnership with MoneySense magazine. I’m super excited about working together with MoneySense, the finest personal finance magazine in Canada, which as you know has long been a trusted source for advice on saving, planning, investing, retirement and real [...]

A New Direction is brought to you by Canadian Capitalist — Helping you to invest & prosper.

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I struggle a lot with motivation. Sometimes, I actually convince myself that $19,000 in debt isn’t that bad and start to wonder why I’m working to pay it off so quickly.
Working to become debt free would be an easy journey if it were only a few months, but when it stretches to years, that’s [...]

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Don’t get too excited. Equifax is offering a free “Credit Score Card“, which in reality just gives you a range of what your credit score is. And the score is from their “Equifax Risk Score” system, not a FICO score. (You can still get 30% off a real FICO score with MYPOINTS30.) The Equifax Risk Score does range from 280-850, which basically the same as FICO from 300 to 850.

Well, it’s free and it’s from Equifax which has all my personal information anyway, so what the heck. Here are my results:

Key Factor(s) Affecting Your Score:
Because your credit score is in the highest range, you may qualify for some of the lowest interest rates and offers from lenders. Below are the top factors that may be preventing you from achieving an even higher credit score.

• There is insufficient information, or no account history, for one or more types of accounts: for example, auto loans, mortgage loans, personal loans or credit cards.
• The proportion of retail accounts, such as department store cards, compared to all of the credit accounts in your credit file.

It still seems stupid that to get a “perfect” credit score of 850, I’ll need to add an auto loan, a personal loan, and a department store card. I’ll hopefully never have any one of those, and I’m betting I can still get just about any loan out there. Nobody needs perfect credit.

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Here is an updated application link at Pinecone Research, which is again accepting new members. (May expire at any time, so apply now if you’re interested!) Looks open to all, but only one person per household can sign up. Link via Realm of Prosperity.

PineCone Research remains one of the better paying and reliable survey companies, with a payout of $3 (check or PayPal) for each 15-minute online survey. The hardest part is getting accepted, as they only take applications intermittently. Some users have reported an increase in unpaid “weed-out” surveys, while others seem to remain happy. I got kicked out a while ago for missing some surveys when I moved, so I’m afraid I can’t provide any comment.

The four survey sites that I have been most active with nowadays are NFO MySurvey, Opinion Outpost, BzzAgent, and SurveySavvy. I like it them because they consistently offer me paid survey opportunities, they pay out reliably (important!), and they don’t mind if I don’t do every single survey offered (unlike Pinecone which does).

I shared my thoughts on Pinecone and paid surveys in general here. I call them Bored Money – not terribly efficient but you can do it at your leisure and occasionally get to try some neat things like shampoo, dog food, new soda flavors, and once even got a new $100 Sonicare toothbrush to keep.

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