name of consumer credit counseling agency or should we contact the creditors ourselves and try to negotiate with them. >> you can do both. you've got to be careful about these agencies. we're going to help you through this. we've got john here. now, john, you've talked to sylvia and you looked at sylvia's and her husband's credit report. let's talk about what we can do here, and then we'll talk about getting help. >> sure. fair enough. don't be sore morbid because they're never as bad as you think they are. one of the reasons why the scores is in the mid-500s, carmen, is for the medical collection of about 1,000 bucks. the issue with the credit card debt, i found about $32,000 of it. it's not as crippling as it may sound, however it's something she's going to want to address sooner rather than later and certainly the consumer credit counseling service is a good

option, but i caution her. sylvia, i want you to listen to this. you want to make sure that any organizations that you go through for this type of service -- it's call add debt management program -- is a national foundation for the program. there's a lot of people who try to hijack the fcc akron name. you want to be careful for the companies in your area who provide those types of services. >> should she consider settling? will they help her negotiate some of these down. >> yeah. the pros of going with the nfcc and one of their debt management programs, carmen, is the creditor is not forgiving any of the debt, okay? they're not losing the dime. they're still getting paid month after month after month and because of that, the credit report is still considered to be in positive standing. there's no damage because she

goes through nfcc. if she chooses to settle, the pro to settling is you're paying less than what you actually know, but the con, the down side, is that because the lender has forgiven some of the debt, they've taken it in the short, so to speak, they're going to show the account as being settled and that's going to prolong the hit for an additional seven years. >> and the odds of getting a settlement with a credit company is low because you're a homeowner. this mostly works with people who don't have any collateral on their books or assets. the credit card company say, hey, you've got this. why don't you sell that. you want to get help, sylvia. john, you and i have done this many times on the show. sylvia, if you can find, taking a second job, cutting further your budget, if you can find another 100, $200 a month, it could mean a world of difference. you could shave years off this

payment plan and also to save so much in interest. >> i'm already working two jobs and actually we could afford another 100 or $200 a month more but what we were wanting to do is double up on the payments, which is going to be really difficult because we'd like to be completely out of credit card debt in three years. >> you don't have to necessarily double up because john, as we've seen before, when it comes down to math, even if you put 200 bucks toward the highest interest rate, i know one of your cards is really high, 29%, even if you do that, you can probably be out in three years. john, she'll get some help from the credit counselor. it sounds like sylvia can do this on her own. >> doing it on your own is always a viable option, carmen. more of the money goes to the creditor. however, they're not likely going to reduce your interest rate. that's one thing you're not going to get which you will get if you go through the nfcc plan. >> her medical plan, if she

takes care of that, the score should go up. >> that's a no-brainer. call them up. you don't want a $1,000 collection suddenly becoming a $3500 collection because of the interest that accrues every month. go ahead and get that one knocked out. be done with it. it's going to stay on your credit record but it's going to stay on your score but it's a zero collection rather than a $1,000 collection. >> first of all you feevt to address the medical collections. as john says, this is really important. it's going to affect your credit history. second, if you can go at this alone, if you want to double up, that's great. put more money. please don't kill yourself. you can be out in three years if you put $200, $300 toward the card with the highest interest rate. if you're going to get help, make sure it's nonprofit help. sylvia, what do you think? >> caller: i think we're going

to go ahead and start making bigger payments and do this without going through any agency at all. >> to crunch your own numbers go to the paydown calculator at didn'tytown.com. you'll be amazed. >> a got a letter from cheryl. she wrote, please help, one year later i'm debt-free but my credit score went to 705. one late payment on a credit card of $79 was sent to the wrong address. what can i do to raise my score. john, one late payment knocked her down 100 points. this is normal. >> yeah. look. credit scores are not common sense animals. they don't function the way they should function sometimes. this illustrates a couple of things. a, just how damaging one late payment can be. that's why you want to avoid late payments. second, that illustrates how good of a credit score you can

still have even if you have one or two late payments. she's still over 700. the beauty of this is what's called fico '08, okay? let me explain. this is the newer version of the fico credit score that's going to discount the negative impact of a late payment. under the new fico score, her score will be higher. >> it should be. one late payment, that's too much of a penalty. how long? just give us quickly. how long sit going to take for her score to get back to the 760 range? >> assuming she doesn't do it again, assuming the one late payment was truly atypical and it's an anomaly and she's not going to compound it by doing it again and again and again, 12 months, she should be fine. if she does that. her damage is in the past. >> all right, cheryl. keep that track record good and

shiny and wonderful. thank you, john, old-timer, for joining us. now from imagining your portfolio. what do we do with the mark-to-market rally. the s&p and nasdaq are trading at levels that we haven't seen since fall of last year. we're nearly 3,000 points over the market low during that rescissir recessi recession. is this a bubble? here to shed more light on the markets here's judy, the author of the emotion behind money. julie, really, the emotion has a lot to do with this, i think. the rally, now, it feels a licket like hope and happiness but makes me nervous. talk to me about it. >> it should make you nervous. you've got to make sure you're putting your personal strategy to work. we have a lot to do. >> a lot. a lot. if anything we learned is what goes up, up, up also goes down,

down, down. i've got alan in florida on the money line. alan, you are concerned about your portfolio being weighed too heavily in one way versus a another. you're 41 years old, maybe a little conservative. what do you think? talk about your portfolio. >> caller: i began with municipal bonds. the diversification is 80% and then 10% bonds, 10% cash. my big concern is california. the ripple effect that it's going to have on other state and local municipal bonds at all. others across the u.s. have budgetary problems as well. what's the chance of it falling? i know it's growing daily. >> julie, so many callers and earmarks have said, you know, i thought these things were safe. and not necessarily especially after this recession. talk to us a little bit about

what alan's looking for in ferm terms of the munis, and is it time for him to step out? >> it's proofrp over and over 90% of our performance is based on how we diversify. that includes munis. i have to sign off on that every day. it's not guaranteed. you have to diversify yourself outside of those munis. i find that they like it but a lot of real estate investment trusts are gate for that but you have to make sure you choose those that have low leverage because there are many that have high leverage in today's economy and they're in trouble right now, so you've got to diversify. there's a reason, alan, that you chose a conservative portfolio. so you've got to stay true to who you are. and even enif you want to diversify back into the market, you're probably not an expert in

hedging portfolios, but if that's something you were looking into, that tactile unrestrainened and absolute investment strategies, it's good for you even in bond portfolios but that will capture the upside and that will help to diversify. >> that's something the pros can do for you. alan is managing his own money right now. he has lots of munis in places that are in trouble. should he hold them, fold them at this point. >> at this point he needs to look at the ones that are really in trouble and i would make sure as far as if they do go south, are you oklahoay in your portfot in your age to hold your objective? to hold them or not, it they're already in trouble. you have to decide should you dump them because the rest of the portfolio can sustain itself or not. >> here's the thing, alan.

you are 41. i respect the fact you need to feel conservative to a point but i would love to see another 20% in the stock market, not the bond market. there's a way to be fairly zliv there which is to get a large index fund. if you want to do this yourself, i know you've got a big portfolio. if you're doing it on your own, get the s&p index, follow it along. as you're seeing, munis, everybody thought they were safe but they're risky. thanks so much for joining us. thank you, julie. julie is going to be back later in the show to answer the question should i rent or buy in the housing market. i want to help you with both of your portfolios, your debt portfolio and your investment portfolio. call me or e-mail me. >> next, he got a hospital bill and didn't like what he saw. >> caller: when i received my bill, i was a bit shocked.

>> the secrets of cutting your medical costs. later from europe to mexico to the caribbean, we have a look at the best deals on the high seas. undefeated professional boxer floyd "money" mayweather has the fastest hands boxing has ever seen. so i've come to this ring to see who's faster... on the internet. i'll be using the 3g at&t laptopconnect card. he won't. so i can browse the web faster, email business plans faster. all on the go. i'm bill kurtis and i'm faster than floyd mayweather. (announcer) switch to the nation's fastest 3g network and get the at&t laptopconnect card for free.

do you have extra money and wonder if it should go toward paying off debt? call me at 1-877-753-cnbc or e-mail me at carmen@cnbc.com and you could be on the show. >> health care is under the gun and our health care costs continue to rise at unprecedented levels. the average american carrying a burden of about $15,000 in medical costs that past year even if you have insurance. what can you do to protelgt your money while you protect your health. joining me is eric who treated his medical procedures after a medical accident like any other big money purchase and he saved thousands. so eric, this all came about from a ski trip. so tell us what happened. >> i was on my annual trip out skiing in colorado with a number of friends. i've been an avid skier for a number of years, raced throughout college. i wasn't just an average skier. went off a pretty significant

aerial jump. if you use a pictorial. i went off and didn't have enough speed this time. hit the edge of the jump. broke both of my heel bones according to the doctor's x-rays. >> let's walk everyone what you did to save money on all of this. first you needed surgery but because of where the injury was you could wait long enough to shop around a bit, right? >> that's right. so this happened on a thursday in february and we had a few days to have me sit tight until i was to meet with a doctor, so between myself and my wife, we shopped around a bit. i called around to a few of the hospitals and clinics to identify what kind of surgery i would need, what sort of associated costs existed, and they were able over the phone to give us most of those quotes in this day and age. a lot of people tend to use the internet for this type of search. there's a number of services out there that you can look up prices, look up the quality of a doctor, the quality of a clinic.

>> first of all you said you had to identify the procedures that were going to happen to you. there's anesthesia and all types of dint doctors that are going to be around you at that time. so you know what you're shopping for as well as when you come out. >> i suggest that people first know what they're getting into, as you mentioned. second, really take a look at the time line and keep a look at the specialists coming into the room, the different locations you might need to go to. i had to go to a different location for an mri. in my situation i had a good sense of what was going on and noticed a few things i didn't expect, a couple of extra specialists, a couple of extra procedures, a bd when i received my bill, i was a bit shocked. >> so you managed to get those off the bill. >> i was able to. i think the key to all of this -- i don't want to suggest that anybody be a hag ler or be a -- you know, a bad consumer. i want you to be a good consumer, and i want you to be a nimble consumer. an example for me would be one was called a leg lifter.

something that was brought into my room after the recovery. it wu never used, laid on the floor, it wasn't even looked at. it was like $189, i want to say. a few other items. occupational therapy, physical therapy. they were things we pre arranged to have come out to our homest so they had people at the actual room come in to provide that and i suggested that we had already had that scheduled and that they not offer it at this time. they insisted and they were each in the room about one minute and sure enough we saw that on my bill. >> yeah. that's too much. you say if they don't respond to you verbally over the phone in terms of disputes, you say it's time to get things on paper. and here's a really important point. you say you've got to copy the attorney general's office. tell us why. >> yeah. in most states and most states the health care is a state-based item at a health insurance level. so when you verbally contest anything on the bill -- again, i

wouldn't have contest everything on the bill but i would contest what you didn't have exec techations set for and what would be an exorbitant price. when you do so, you want to verbally contest it over the phone. if that is not to your satisfaction, you likely will get a letener the mail that will say we've disallowed that. what i would suggest at that point is to mail a letter back, and when you mail the letter back, i would copy your attorney general because if it's denied at this point, you believe you shouldn't have those services on your bill, that's where you need to take it to a legal standpoint. >> you saved so much on your bill because you shopped around first. you probably saved a lot of money there. and you saved $1500 taking things off your bill that you didn't use or things that didn't happen. so you saved quite a bit of money in there. thank you so much for sharing your story and your tips. now from protecting your money to making money. with unemployment nearing 10% and many in the work force

having to change their training to fit a new employment lands cape, online learning has been enjoying a boom. nbc's tom has the story. >> reporter: this is where she's always wanted to be. a classroom in miami teaching second great. >> why don't you grab the paper, sweetie. >> reporter: getting here meant going back to college and juggling a job with two kids. >> i didn't want to do that to my family. i didn't want to leave them. >> reporter: angie was exactly the stulkt 19 governors had in mind when they started western governors university 12 years ago, what "time" magazine has called the best cheap europe ver university you've never heard of. the online program has exploded

from 5,000 students in 2003 to 14,000 today. here's what's different. rather than requiring students to physically attend dozens of classes, instead they work from home at their own pace. when they take exams, they do it at local test centers, and if a student demonstrates complete command of a subject matter, he or she can test out of that subject and graduate that much more quickly. the biggest for-profit schools include university of phoenix, kaplan. for her the dream of 19 governors has become her dream fulfilled. >> joining us is kim clark of u.s. news and world report. kim, this is quickly becoming the fastest growing segment of higher ed really. >> it i. this is something that didn't even exist what, ten years ago. and this year they estimate 4 million americans are going to take an online course. so this is definitely booming. >> this is huge. now, the quality of the

education, this is an issue. how do you know that you're using a school that actually counts, that it's accredited? >> right. well, accreditation is probably the single most important factor that everybody should consider before they sign up for any online college. it's very easy to check. you go to the department educations website and you can look up your online college that you're considering and they'll tell you whether it's accredited by a federally approved agency. if it is, you don't get better off financial aid and most employers and schools won't give you the credit. don't take a course not approved by the federal government. >> exactly. your money is not being put to good use there. there are other things you have to ask and look at whelp it comes to your online education. talk in terms of what you need to look for. how about your professors and the teachers, how they interact with you. >> people are sort of confused because at the u.s. news, university director, we have literally hundreds, data on

hundreds of different online programs. there are so many competitors out there. people don't know what to choose. here's great questions to ask. accreditation, most important. secondly, if you're going to be doing your homework and assignments on the weekendends and late at night, which is why you're taking the online course anyway you want to ask if they have 24/7 text support because if you're doing your assignment at midnight and have a problem, you want help right away. >> you want a live person, a human being to talk to on the other end of the line. because this is online and they don't know exactly if it's you on the other side or if it's really that professor, so what about anti-cheating measures? >> they say they're second rate, easy to cheat and you don't learn as much and a lot of online colleges are trying to combat that by making it harder than the traditional courses in a real classroom and one of the ways they're doing that is

making in some cases students in some courses actually download security software and install spy cams on their computers so when you take a test, the school is going to lock down your computer so o you can't go to wikipedia and copy something, right? and they're going to have somebody watch you take the test. so they can see whether you're asking a friend for help or looking up something in a book. so you can't cheat at these -- some of these online courses. they're actually harder than a traditional course. >> that have very interesting. when you talk about nontraditional scheduling. you're not talking about night classes. this is abouting the learning process, right? >> there's an infinite variety of courses. a lot of people take an online course because they have an assignment due every week but they can do it at 3:00 in the morning or on saturdays. so they just have to turn the assignment in once a week but they can do it at their schedule. >> we even got to talk about this one, you know.

price, money. outlay. so everything else being equal. let's say you have a couple of schools lined up, how can you find the best price, the best return for your money. >> one of the great things about online colleges is there's so much competition you're actually seeing a price war. you're actually seeing price competition. reduced prices chchl is not something you've seen in traditional colleges, right? i've checked around. there's some accredited public universities. they're offering -- there's a school in texas that's offering $500 per course for a masters in teaching. that's a good deal. some of the for-profits you were mentioning are charging $1,000 to $2,000 per course. this is accredited schools and offering a masters for teaching. that's a bargain. >> i know i paid a lot for mine myself. i'm still paying for it. thanks so much for joining us. we'll be right back. next. >> the pricing for the fall has never been cheaper than it has

been right now. >> we have the best deals on cruises and how to get them. and later, one of my favorite money mottos. work with what you got, what you get in the bank, what you get in your paycheck. hi, may i help you? we're shopping for car insurance, and our friends said we should start here. good friends -- we compare our progressive direct rates, apples to apples, against other top companies, to help you get the best price. how do you do that? with a touch of this button. can i try that? [ chuckles ] wow! good luck getting your remote back. it's all right -- i love this channel. shopping less and saving more. now, that's progressive. call or click today. how many washes did it take cheer brightclean to get this from dingy to bright? ten.

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do you need help getting out of credit card debt? call me at 1-877-753-cnbc or e-mail me at carmen@cnbc.com, and you could be on the show. oh, we can all surely use a vacation, but just as quickly as travel got cheap, many flights got pricey. so why not hit the high seas for some fun and fun to help save money on deck. we've got stewart on, also known as the cruise guide from cruise guide.com. you say it's all about time to take a cruise. >> couldn't we all use a cruise. >> right now the pricing for the fall not any cheaper than it is right now. >> why is that. >> as more ships continue to be introduced into the market, there's more beds to fill and we're also into the fall when the kids are back in school, which means they don't have the families that they can count on to fill their ship so they even

got to make their pricing've more aggressive than traditionally. >> you can get whip lash from trying to keep track of all the flight trends and this and that. fill us in on the fees. what are the cruise trends right now that we need to know? >> right now the ships continue to get bigger and better. more ships are introduced. you know, you'll have your cruise, your government taxes, the airfare to get you to the port. what's nice about about the cruises is pretty much around the continental u.s., if there's a port, there may be a ship ta's a lot closer to you, which means you don't have to -- >> i've got one red brook, brooklyn. giant. princess cruise line. they all come in. i can't believe this. this is all incluesive. this is carnival, mexican river area. >> believe it or not, seven-night cruise parting out of lapgs and the prices have been around $1,769 per person.

$499. and this is a new ship. they positioned new hardware out in the los angeles market and there's a significant change to. be able to get a ship at this magnitude at $499 to start with, that's a great deal. >> that's unpleevl actually. it makes me a little nervous. it seems like too good of a deal here. but the other one is very interesting because it's longer, to europe, ten nights to rome. celebrity solstice. it's a different price rage but it still is a huge discount. >> it is a huge discount. the celebrity solstice is a sister ship to the equinox which just day bud. they're the two best ships literally in the world in the market. there's nothing better. there's 122,000 tons, hold 2800 passengers and they're not going to find a better way to see europe.

you're talking $2,399 per person. that's e a balcony cabin. not inside. it includes two nights' hotel in rome. so most ships will start in the $2200 range just for the cruise part and you're also going to start on an inside. here you're going balcony, air, and a hotel at one of the most popular itineraries of the world. >> tell us about the "liberty of the seas," the largest in the world. >> it's not going to be the largest. they're coming out with "oasis in" december. "liberty" is a sister ship. holds about 3,400 passengers and right now it's doing seven-night eastern and western caribbean out of miami. the prices that were usually $1,700, we're seeing it as low as $599. any time you can see this, you

can actually under $1,000, thi is a phenomenal deal. it's so rare to get a ship with these size of activities. you've got rock-climbing walls and ice-skating rinks. you can go surfing and boogie boarding on a cruise ship. you have all these kinds of activities. my favorite part is you're not waking up in the same boring place each day. >> that's great. thank you so much for joining us. be sure to check out o the extra where stewart will be back at booking the cruise. we'll be right back. next, it's dollar dilemma time. how i save money and how i got out of credit card debt. we're talking credit card secrets. and later one of the most popular real estate questions out there now. should you buy or rent? we'll walk you through what's rate for you.

i'm carmen wong ulrich with your money and cents. your credit score reflects your credit history and help lenders and employers know how much of a risk you are. skouer your report for any debt. clean up error reports. your entitled to pull your credit record for free once a year at annualcreditreport.com. mr. evans? this is janice from onstar.

i have received an automatic signal you've been in a front-end crash. do you need help? yeah. i'll contact emergency services and stay with you. you okay? yeah. onstar. standard for one year on 14 chevy models. if saving money happened as automatically as everything else? at bank of america, it practically does. use the bankamericard power rewards visa credit card and earn rewards like cash back with every purchase. cash you can put into savings. or even use to help pay down your credit card balance. it's one of the many ways we make saving money in tough times a whole lot easier.

do you need help fighting a hospital bill? call me at 1-877-753-cnbc or e-mail me at carmen@cnbc.com and you could be on the show. now, you've all got money questions that don't need a 10-minute answer. we call these my dollar dilemmas. brianne in new jersey, what's your dollar d? >> caller: i'm tired of using a traditional checking account and i want something online that's secure such as ing? >> does closure because i've got money over there. listen. i voted with my money. i love them. here's the thing. they don't have all the costs associated with brick and mortar. they don't have to build a building, pay a teller -- maybe one. they can trickle down the cost savings to you. you just have to make sure that they are legit and that they are safe. so brianna, i want you to do

your research around. make sure they're fdic ensured and shop around and look at their terms. really, if they're fdic insured, they're safe. it's a great place to put your money. just know if you have a lot of paper checks, you'll have to mail those in. if you need access to them right away. online banking may not be for you but if you have direct deposit it might be for you. mike in iowa, what's your dollar dilemma? >> caller: i wonder if it would benefit me to transfer my balances from two or three other credit cards to just one credit card with zero percent interest for 12 months. there's a #% transfer fee and after that it would be an everyday purchase rate. >> how much are we talking? does the 3% fee outweigh the savings you make on the interest difference? >> i haven't gotten that far. >> here's the thing. you want to make sure the 3% fee

actually makes sense in terms of how much money you're transferring over. if you're talk 20g% versus zero, well, that's huge and that could be a huge amount of savings. how long are you going too keep that debt? surfing your balances around is not a bad thing but know that you're overutilize that card at zero percent that may trigger them to change your interest rate so you have to be careful and be very namele with your credit cards. if they do that, spread the rate around, call them up. you're going to have to manage this month to month. you can do this, mike. know that when you transfer the balance your credit score is going to go down a bit but i want you to save money and it's how i save money and how i got out of credit card debt out of college because i surfed those balances around in a much different vierjt, by the way, but it works if you manage it month to month. all right, mike? >> yes. >> thank you so much. jason in indiana, what's your

dollar "d"? >> caller: i have a dilemma about which debts to pay off first. i have a couple of student loans as well as a second mortgage. we're trying to figure out which one to tackle first. >> all right. i've got a couple questions for you. student loans, fixed rate and federal. >> >> fix rate and consolidated, yes. >> what's your interest rate. >> caller: about 60%. >> beautiful. you guys got your degrees, right? >> yes. >> full-time jobs. now the second mortgage, how much equity do you have in your home? >> only about $3,000. >> not bad. here's the thing. the student loan debt, it's in great debt. the second mortgage srks that in the form of a heloc? >> no. >> no. >> caller: it's considered just a second mortgage. >> whats ee your interest rate on that? >> caller: 7.25%. >> that's still not horrible to me. i think anything at or below 8% is not a bad thing. you've got collateral. i would real estate you put any

and extra money toward an emergency fund and maxing out all your i.r.a.s. here's the thing. you don't know where the housing market is going to go at this point and you've put 30% of your money into your housing market by paying your mortgage then you've got the student loan debt which was a good debt. it's cheap money. you're making a huge return over it over time much more than that 4%, jason, that you're paying. so instead of focusing on getting rid of the de, focus on growing your money. that's where your money needs to go and work for you, jason. okay? >> thank you. >> thank you so much. i've got an e-mail. she writes last year we bought a piece of land. my husband was laid off five months ago and i take home about $4500 a month. now, we have $110,000 in a savings account. should we use the money to pay off the land or invest in muni bonds? here's the deal. just like i told our lovely

friend, the previous caller, you're going to be gamble on the land, especially the fact that he's lost his job, you need to protect that money, protect that savings. 've though it's bigger than an emergency fund you don't know how long he's going to be unemployed. pay your bills as is and don't put your money into that land right now. it's a real big gamble. don't put it necessarily all in muni bonds. keep that emergency fund until he finds another job. then invest it. max out i.r.a.s. okay. thank you so much, yawen. >> if you have questions held to our face page. (announcer) this is nine generations

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to get this from dingy to bright? ten. seven. it's six. why? why is... one... yeah! hundred. no. cheer brightclean. surprisingly bright in just one wash. fantastically low levels and the housing market in many locations looking like a bottom is here or already here, it can seem like it's time to tank the plunge to buy a home now, but renting still has its appeal, so should you buy or rent? jeff in kentucky, you're worried about losing out on the great market. >> caller: yeah. i have recently paid off a

substantial amount of credit card debt. i'm now in a position to save money each month. should i look to purchase now, or should i wait and build up my savings? >> you got yourself out of some debt, about $20,000, right? >> right. >> a tremendous amount of debt. now you're saving money. >> right. >> how's your credit score looking. >> mid-600s. >> that concerns me. let's add another voice to this discussion. we have julie casterly here founder e and president of wealth management. julie, here's the thing. the market can be the great but it's all about your own money and you have people asking all the time. >> you have to work it backwards. take a look what you want to pay out of the pocket on a monthly basis for your mortgage and does that work with your current cash flow. can you afford it because you know paying low rent versus a higher mortgage payment, you may not be able to afford it including the real estate taxes and everything else. >> because, yeah, that's the

thing. owning a home has a lot more costs to do with it than renting. so that needs to be considered. >> absolutely. and i think the biggest mistake is people don't leave enough room in their cash flow. so when the hot water tank breaks or the roof needs repairs. people don't think about that when they're running the numbers with a mortgage broker. >> you get asked this question all the time. listen, how's your credit because that play as big part in it. >> absolutely it has a lot to do with it. i'm encouraging people today if they're trying to weigh to rent or own sit down with a mortgage broker to see what they qualify for but i would do it after you decide what your monthly nut is so you're not talked into something you don't really want to do. >> jeff, here's the thing, with your credit score where it is, you've gotten yourself out of debt, it's going too take a while. your credit score is way below where it needs to be. listen, this is a long-term loan. you're locking in a rate. so you want to get the best

rate. julie, right now in the 600s, he probably wouldn't get the best rates so it's going to cost him so much more to borrow. >> right. absolutely. sometimes you have to come up with create irv solutions. do you have someone that can cosign with you? still, you want to make sure that it's fitting in your cash flo. i can't stress that enough. peep buy because of the opportunity, not necessarily because it's a sound financial thing to do. >> yeah. so here's your to-do list because you need to get ready to buy. this is not -- this may be the time to buy for folks who are all set, but you need a little more time. don't be afraid. i mean the housing market is not going to shift so drastically overnight again that you're going to lose out tremendously here. what you want to do, like julie says, you want to be on solid financial ground. first, improve your credit. pay off the rest, all of your credit card debt. really manage your credit well and in 12 months you should be in much better shape. save more in an mfrmg fund. listen.

things o go wrong. when you own a home, you we've got to be prepared. you've got to save for retirement. and also if you feel like you're falling behind. if you need to take on a second job if possible to move things along more quickly, do that. do you have a down payment? >> no, not really. >> not yet? >> caller: hmm-mm. >> what does this sound like? does it sound like you gave me too much to do? >> caller: no. it's very sound advice and something for me to think about. >> we want you to get your dream and goal and be able to keep it unlike a lot of people we hear from. thank you for joining us. thank you, julie. if you're wonder eing whether to buy or rent, ask me. call me at 1-877-753-cnbc or e-mail me at carmen@cnbc.com. click on the link. i'll be there right after this. ] introducing the latest

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here's where i like to put a

spotlight on one of your questions. steve e-mails me and asks when you say that 30% of a person's income should go toward housing, do you mean 30% of the net monthly earnings or gross earnings? well, steve, here's what i mean. why would i tell you to work with something that you don't got. work with what you got. what you get in the bank, what you get in your paycheck. because what's gone is gone. you don't see it. you can't use it. now, remember, the 30 to 35% includes your housing payment, that'sure mortgage or rent, property taxes on the home, and rental or home insurance. all of that together, 30 to 35%. now, if you spend more -- because understand you're going to have much less to save or pay off debt. a lot less flexibility. think of your whole budget as a pie, right? you've got 100% there. so few you eat there, something's got to give. keep flexible. keep your housing costs low. that's what i mean, my friend. thank you so much, steve. if you have a question this

you'd like in the otm spotlight e-mail me at carmen@cnbc.com. and next on suze, make sure to catch tonight's web extra where we hit the high seas with even more on cruise savings. check it out. and next week, it's a question i get all the time. carmen, save me money. from banking fees to airline fees to 401(k) plans to buying a new car. next week, a special hour about saving money. if you missed show or want to catch it again organization u can download full episodes. even if you do download, i want to see you next week "on the money." tools are uncomplicated?

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coming up on "the suze orman show." what happened on the intervention. travis is back with an update. you're not going to believe this one. >> yes, you can be harsh. >> yes, i can. >> sometimes people need the tough love and clearly i was one of those people. also really crazy things have been happening between the commercial breaks. should we show them the types of things we do? >> of course, we should show th them. and you ask me can i afford it. >> they're like my kids. plus they're chick magnets. >> i'm not sure that's a chick magnet. hi, everybody. i'm suze orman, and you're

watching "the suze orman show." have you ever wondered if there's one thing you could do to almost guarantee financial success? is there a behavior? is there an investment? is there something that would make you look forward many sore than you possibly do right now to your tomorrows versus the debt-ridden todays that you have in your life? and i have to tell you in my opinion there is, so listen up. sure, you can invest your money. sure, you can go to work and get a paycheck. you can do all these things when it comes to money. however, if you do not surround yourself with good company, people that respect your situation, that respect that you have debt and maybe can't afford something, that want more for you than simply for you to go out to a bar or on a vacation or to a restaurant with them, if you could surround yourself with good company, people whoan