Tricia It was my understanding the opt out stops anyone from taking a look see at your credit to know how much credit they will offer when sending a credit card offer?? As far as anyone you already have a relationship with I just called the few we got and ask to be put on their opt out list. I even opted out of our own bank, credit union and savings institutions. The only thing I get is statements and notices when a CD is coming due. We didnt get any junk mail for years until a few months ago. I will be turning 65 this year and am now getting 8 to10 offers a week from every insurance company in the world. At first I was calling and asking them to please take me off the mailing list but now have just given up and shred everything. I would like to know how I got on these lists but havent found an answer yet. SS and Medicare both say they do not share any information. I am even getting this junk addressed to me at my dads address. Very frustrating for him. We dont have home mail delivery so even my post master if upset that he cant get all my mail in my P.O. Box. I told him to just send it back but of course he cant. As far a credit scores I will never understand how that works. About 12 or so years ago our accountant ask me how many credit card I had in my wallet. We got to figuring it out and came up with an obscene amount of available credit. I had cards for way to many department stores that I never used. I had had them for years so the limits were high. I closed everything but the one credit card that was tied to our checking account and the debit card for the same account. I had our bank set out credit limit at ten thousand so it never goes any higher. I pay it off every month. I also had them set the limit on our debit card higher so each of us has a thousand dollar a day limit. When DH ordered me a new car a few years ago he was told we have the highest credit score the dealership had ever seen and mine was 2 points higher that his. I havent worked in over 20 years so how does that happen? I check our accounts every morning as soon as I get on the computer and pay the credit card from the checking account as soon as the cycle ends. We have one of those very old gold accounts so we dont have any fees or pay for anything including cashiers check and travelers checks. The manager at the bank told me to never close it. I pay all our bills on line and never have had a problem. So my next question is should I keep the checking account statements or just shred them? Claudia

My brother and I moved swiftly and surely to isolate our mother's assets when it became clear her failing health would preclude her independent life style. That was 2 1/2 years ago. She has a revocable trust now. Assets are protected, we have powers of attorney, and the chaos that follows any death will be minimized. She has "gifted" every year since her health "crashed and burned". Her home has been emptied of its contents and her assets have been directed to its maintenance. I can only tell you, that having an elderly, frail, mentally failing parent in your home and in your care is no day at the beach. To be perfectly honest, I hate the encroachment on my personal freedom. But she is my mother, she needs my help, and who better than I to see she is well cared for, indulged, given mental stimulation on a daily basis? "Baby boomers" need to pay attention to this issue... , laws governing "look back" and estate planning change every month/year; you need to pay attention to politics! "Look back" for Mum had we tried to put our names on the deed to her home in 2003 was 3 years. With the trust it was reduced to 7 mos.. Get thee to a lawyer specializing in ELDER LAW and estate planning, ASAP. Loop holes on inheritance and the transfer of potentially valuable real estate are being closed routinely, even as we're being told that we should reduce our expectation of social security and Medicare. Smarten up! move now and isolate the assets. You'll be glad you did.

Forgive me, in advance, for my lengthy post... I am never short on words. Prescription discount cards are not new and they do work. In addition to the "questionable" organizations/companies many refer to in these related forums, they're also offered by legitimate organizations, profit and non-profit alike, and even some states! I'm sure someone may have already mentioned that but I didn't read ALL the postings, most but not all. My husband is on Medicare. I am 12 years younger and have no health insurance. We carried insurance when we owned and operated a family business, but the premiums (for a 10,000.00 deductible) became ridiculously high, plus we were paying everything out of pocket. We only had the insurance for that hope-it-never-happens catastrophic illness. We dropped the insurance and decided to start our own insurance "fund". However, that's just a bit of background. I take five prescription meds, one of which is very costly. I have three discount cards on file at my pharmacy (Walgreens) and am enrolled in Walgreens' prescription program for $20.00 per year. One discount card is through our state Farm Bureau as we are members. One is through the United Methodist Church organization as we are First United Methodists. The third is the Relief card and I have to be honest, I cannot remember receiving this card, however my memory isn't what it used to be. The pharmacy is supposed to run each of my new fills and refills through each discount program in my file. They often forget to do this and I have to remind them. I have saved MANY dollars by remembering to remind them. :) Case in point... this past week I refilled my most expensive med. I get a three month supply, which usually runs over $200.00 with one of the other discount plans (not Walgreens...I actually do not save much with them and am considering dropping that plan). When I picked up my refill, the tech told me it was over $400.00. My hair stood on end. I had them run it through all of my discount plans. I ultimately paid just over $60.00 for that three month refill. I asked which plan had saved me that much and was told the Relief plan. Now, maybe I'll be sorry somewhere down the line but I'm surely happy about it now. BTW... that med is a generic. Discounts are often deeper for generics. As for jeopardizing personal information, one person suggested that Walgreens would have to give out my DL# to these companies. I never voluntarily gave my DL# or SS# to Walgreens (or SS# to ANYONE), but my DL# is on my checks for anyone to see, as is my bank's routing number and my account number. I pay for meds with Walgreens' Express Pay, which means that they have a copy of one of my CC #'s on file. Since we travel a lot, I know that this number is in the Walgreens' system for any Walgreen's pharmacy to use, anywhere in the country, as I have had Rx's filled in other states. No problems with CC theft yet. As for submitting personal information, we do it in some way many times a year. Did you not give your name, birth date and state when registering for this site?? The page where I entered my information was not encrypted. Do you really trust this site's Privacy Policy just because it's there?? And, have you actually read it verbatim?? I doubt that many people read any or all Terms and Conditions before accepting them. I also checked the BBB for ScriptRelief, the company which issues the Relief Rx cards via Health Alliance. See link (copy and paste) http://www.bbb.org/new-york-city/business-reviews/medical-dental-discount-plans/script-relief-llc-in-new-york-ny-130619 There are 22 complaints listed, 14 of which are related to advertising/sales issues. It went on to say that the BBB knows of no government actions involving this company and that all 22 complaint issues were resolved by Script Relief. If you do a search for prescription discount cards, you'll find a whole host of them. And, if you search for "how they work", you'll find MANY articles. I wanted to find unbiased information that was not supplied by any of the discount plan companies and happened upon this one... simple but good...(copy and paste link) http://www.frugalconfessions.com/save-me-money/are-prescription-drug-discount-cards-for-real.php This author states that the companies offering the free discount RX plans make money through referral fees paid by pharmacies for each RX filled using the card, i.e. they want to get and keep customers who ultimately purchase much more than meds in their stores. Her research leads her to the conclusion that it can't hurt to sign on to one (or more in my case because different cards offer different savings on the same med) of these programs. One might argue that other people, private pay and with insurance, are paying more for those of us using discount cards. To this I say, I am private pay for all other medical visits, hospital stays, diagnostics, etc., and I'm sure that I am paying a higher price for those who get assisted relief from medical costs. My clinic and most hospitals offer a 5-10% discount for private pay, if the charges are paid in full. Who do you think makes up that difference? As for insurance, everyone's premiums are affected (and increased) by other people's claims, lawsuits, etc. It's a fact of life that we ALL pay for each other in some way or another. Sadly, it's just looked at negatively unless it's charitable and tax deductible. I've been using my discount cards for at least ten years. (Our son was too until he graduated from college and got a job with health insurance.) I still have my identity, no one has come looking to collect the difference I have saved on my meds all those years, and I'll keep using them until I woefully reach the age of Medicare, if Medicare is still a viable option when I get there because that money is really not there, (refer to our national debt) but that's a whole other topic for another time. I'm not trying to convince anyone to use the discount cards; just FYI'ing. I will keep using them and if I encounter a problem, I promise to post it. :)

MtRdRedux is right on with the into on Too Much Available Credit", which is a myth for actual FICO Scores, which are used by almost all lenders. There are a few, very few, lenders that have issues with too much available other credit. This mostly applies to marginal borrowers and lenders that specialize in risky loans where the lender knows their prospect is already marginal and making them cancel the other credit will help to ensure that they are the one getting the money before they finally descend into the abyss. Perfect Credit Score is also a myth. The algorithms break down on extremely high scores and are effectively useless in differentiating risk. Classic FICO Scores have a theoretical range up to 850 but all versions of those scores including the '04 versions used for Mortgage apps max out well below that, one of them at 818. NOBODY can get 850 as there is NO path through the algorithm that makes 850 possible. If you are really curious about this, you can follow her link to MyFico.com where you will find my name attached to much of the mythbusting on credit scoring. I haven't posted in years as it eventually became more about selling stuff than information. Still the best credit site around in spite of big flaws. One piece of info is that it always a bad idea to close any credit card from a scoring standpoint. It can make sense from saving money if it has a fee and worth the small hit it has for a person with good credit, particularly if your accounts are mostly older. It affects Average Age of Accounts.