o.After graduating from college last fall, Jessica Stevens took a job as a consumer credit analyst at a local bank. From her work reviewing credit applications, she realizes that she should begin establishing her own credit history. Describe for Jessica several steps that she could take to begin building a strong credit record. Does the fact that she took out a student loan for her college education help or hurt her credit record?

o.After graduating from college last fall, Jessica Stevens took a job as a consumer credit analyst at a local bank. From her work reviewing credit applications, she realizes that she should begin establishing her own credit history. Describe for Jessica several steps that she could take to begin building a strong credit record. Does the fact that she took out a student loan for her college education help or hurt her credit record? 


p.Robert Denby has a monthly take-home pay of $1,685; he makes payments of $410 a month on his outstanding consumer credit (excluding the mortgage on his home). How would you characterize Robert’s debt burden? What if his take-home pay were $850 a month and he had monthly credit payments of $150? 


q.Use Worksheet 6.1. Rebecca Collins is evaluating her debt safety ratio. Her monthly take- home pay is $3,320. Each month, she pays $380 for an auto loan, $120 on a personal line of credit, $60 on a department store charge card, and $85 on her bank credit card. Complete Worksheet 6.1 by listing Rebecca’s outstanding debts, and then calculate her debt safety ratio. Given her current take-home pay, what is the maximum amount of monthly debt payments that Rebecca can have if she wants her debt safety ratio to be 12.5 percent? Given her current monthly debt payment load, what would Rebecca’s take-home pay have to be if she wanted a 12.5 percent debt safety ratio? 


r. David and Joan Mead have a home with an appraised value of $180,000 and a mortgage balance of only $90,000. Given that an S&L is willing to lend money at a loan-to-value ratio of 75 percent, how big a home equity credit line can David and Joan obtain? How much,
if any, of this line would qualify as tax-deductible interest if their house originally cost $200,000? 


s. Isaac Primack recently graduated from college and is evaluating two credit cards. Card A has an annual fee of $75 and an interest rate of 9 percent. Card B has no annual fee and an interest rate of 16 percent. Assuming that Isaac intends to carry no balance and pay off his charges in full each month, which card represents the better deal? If Isaac expected to carry a significant balance from one month to the next, which card would be better? Explain. 


t. Janine Waite has several credit cards, on which she is carrying a total current balance
of $14,500. She is considering transferring this balance to a new card issued by a local bank. The bank advertises that, for a 2 percent fee, she can transfer her balance to a card that charges a 0 percent interest rate on transferred balances for the first nine months. Calculate the fee that Janine would pay to transfer the balance, and describe the benefits and drawbacks of balance transfer cards. 


u.Lei Sung was reviewing her credit card statement and noticed several charges that didn’t look familiar to her. Lei is unsure whether she should “make some noise,” or simply pay the bill in full and forget about the unfamiliar charges. If some of these charges aren’t hers, is she still liable for the full amount? Is she liable for any part of these charges—even if they’re fraudulent?