Well, my personal situation is a bit different, davelj, so maybe I should explain.
I value each few hundred thousand of savings because I am very conservative. For example, I like to limit my spending to less than 10% of my income. My cash reserves cover 10 years of spending, and that’s a low point for me. I have never borrowed, and I have never looked up my credit score, so I don’t know what it is. But I am aware that, since I don’t pay any attention to it, it might be low. (If FedEx screws up a billing, I politely let them know. If they screw it up twice, I just don’t pay. I don’t have time to waste.) When I last moved jobs, I actually required that the offer not be conditional on my credit score. I am well known in my little segment of my industry, so it was not a problem.
I can’t imagine a bad credit score becoming an issue for me, since I don’t have a high (general) public profile at the companies I work for. (They are well-known financial institutions.) I do have to file detailed background information about myself directly with dozens of regulatory bodies, but they don’t ask for my credit score. And the people who know me at my company use me for valuing acquisition targets, so I think they just don’t much care if FedEx disagrees with me on a bill. If I ever had to take on more public responsibilities, I’d just clean up the credit score.
I am curious, what forces you to have a good credit score? Is it reputational – the folks you deal as clients don’t know you that well? Or is it regulatory – bank regulators require it of directors? I may have to pay attention to my score one day, I suppose, so it probably wouldn’t hurt to become aware of what other folks have to do.
