brought to you by Y Refi Refinance your defaulted private student loans today at Yrefi.com. The Ramsey show question today, here we go, brought to you from Lucia in New Jersey. My sister is going through a divorce and has to refinance her home to remove her ex-husband from the mortgage. She asked if I would add her as an authorized user on my credit card, but not to give her a card so she won't be able to use it.
She says it would just help her credit score so that she can get a better rate when she refinances. I've never done this so I'm not sure if it will affect my credit score, which is in the 800s. Do you see any red flags with this plan? Too many to count.
All I see is all red flags. No, I would not add her. This is not going to be a blessing to either of you. I hate that she's going through this.
It's going to be tough, but here's the good news. As her credit score improves, as she makes mortgage payments and stays out of debt and stays on time with all of her payments, her credit score will naturally improve and she can refinance to a better rate down the road, but I would not add her as an authorized user. Her credit history will become part of your credit history and affect both of you. And if you make any poor decisions, God forbid, then that will also affect her negatively.
And so I would say, listen, I love you a lot. I cannot bring you into my financial world and tether you to it. There's risk for both of us and I'm not comfortable doing that. And let me just put this out there.
I know this is one of those things where you say something like this and those who don't need to hear it, take it to heart and those who do need to hear it won't hear you anyway. If you need help financially from a friend, say, I need some money. Like that's the cleanest, clearest way to send you some help. But asking them to co-sign to hear it.
We've been authorized user on a credit card, but you keep the card. Now you're asking me to be your babysitter, to be your mom, to also be your financial advisor. And when you need a card and I won't give it to you, then I get to be your punching bag. Like you are choosing to disrupt the friendship and kind of blow it up.
I'd rather a friend come to me and say, hey, I'm going to pickle. I need X amount of dollars and then come up with some scheme as to work and what that's you. But it'll help me. It just causes problems down the road.
Yeah. And the other part of this is you might actually be hurting her by artificially propping her up and keeping her in this house that she really can't afford. That's right. The answer might be she needs to sell the house because it's too much for her to take on on her own.
And that's not a fun thing to do, but it might be the truth she needs to hear. And so you can be a support for her without attaching her to your financial world and dragging each other down. Great question though. Why refi, refi, refi, and says delinquent private student loans for struggling borrowers.
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