Episode three thirty five, How your credit score saves You Money with Michelle Lambright Black. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a.
Life here your hosts.
Jen and Jill. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill. And every third episode of the show, we bring on one of our friends or somebody who's an expert in something that we are not, which is a lot of things. And today we are bringing both to you our friend and credit expert, Michelle Lambright Black, because we haven't done a lot of credit episodes and it is a huge popular question in
personal finance. So we are going to talk about credit scores, credit reports in the light of how they save you money.
Yeah, I admittedly I don't know a ton about this. I think the few episodes we've done in the past have helped, Like episode one sixty demystifying the credit score, that's another one you can go back to. Obviously that's
pretty far back in our archives. And then even further back from that episode sixty five getting into and paying off over twenty seven thousand dollars of credit card debt with Chris Browning of Popcorn Finance that's a little bit more credit adjacent, but clearly connected to our credit score.
So it's about time that we dust off these shelves and give ourselves some updated information, update the episode catalog, and really just kind of help ourselves know how to keep a pulse on it, what to do as a result of pulling our credit reports and understanding our credit scores. And ma'am Michelle's a good one. Can't wait for you to hear her.
But first, this episode is brought to you by Ampersands. Today is National ampersand Day, and while we couldn't find any food deals for this holiday, we did find some for next week, quite a few for next week, and we'll send you all the news you can use to get free food every Monday in the friend Letter, along with money saving tips and deals on Wednesday and Friday. So if you are not on the list yet, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash friend Letter to get freebies and.
More ampersend, more ampersand mm hmm, I'm loving the friend Letter. I'm learning and getting so much free stuff because we're researching. Really, it's like the podcast we do it so we can learn more. We do this friend letter for free because we also get free stuff and learn more. Yeah, oh, join us.
So we love it. We love it just as much as you do. So let's get into this interview with Michelle. She is the founder of credit writer dot com. She is a personal finance writer specializing in credit. She is a leading credit expert speaker, and she has over two decades of experience writing about personal finance, specifically credit. You can find her in Forbes, USA, Today, Readers, Digest, Parents, Bank, Great Business Insider, all over Wall Street Journal, and today
we have snagged her for Frugal Friends. Basically right up there, the same caliber Forbes and Frugal Friends. Yeah, right up there. So, without further ado, here's Michelle. Michelle, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are very excited to have you with us.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here today.
There is so much I think missunderstanding and mystification around credit scores for myself included, so I'm so thrilled to have you here. We haven't talked a ton about credit on this podcast, maybe like one or two episodes in the past, so you are the expert on it, and just to get us started, could you define what is
a credit score? How is it calculated? Maybe even why sometimes it's different from different credit bureaus when you do a search, like just lay it all out for us, like we don't know anything.
Well. Credit is definitely a confusing topic, so it's normal to feel overwhelmed and confused about it. Credit. Basically, a credit score is like a grade if you kind of think back, so when you were in school. Credit scoring systems they are software and they look at our credit report and they basically evaluate our risk level for lenders.
So the job, the purpose of a credit score is to take a look at your credit report and then it's going to predict the likelihood that you'll pay any one of your credit obligations ninety days late or worse within the upcoming twenty four months. That's what a lender wants to know, is how likely you are to pay that bill or to pay any one of your bills
really late by ninety days or worse. And then that lets them know whether you're a good risk, whether it's a good idea for them to loan you money right, whether you're a good investment, and they're going to approve or deny your application based on that information and price your loan accordingly. Right, if you are a high risk, they might deny you outright, or they might approve you but charge you a higher interest rate to kind of
make up for that risk. So it's a tool that a lender uses to gather information because they don't know
much about you. Kind of the same way if you had a friend or a family member ask you to borrow money, you might already have some background information to know you know, Hey, they borrowed a few hundred dollars from me a couple of years ago and they never paid it back, So maybe I'm not comfortable loaning that person money, or yeah, this person super responsible, and yes, okay, I can loan that person money and I trust that
they're going to pay me back. But lenders don't know us, so they don't have the luxury of having that information. And that's where credit scores come in and help them fill in the gaps.
Beautiful rundown nice And did the main credit bureaus do they work with different lenders or how do they end up being different from bureau to bureau?
So there's a couple of reasons you actually have hundreds of different credit scores, Believe it or not. There's a few different reasons this happens. One reason is because you have three different credit reports from Equifax, TransUnion, and Experience, and all three of those credit reports can have slightly
different information. So you might have a loan that reports just to Equifax, and then you might have some credit cards that report to all three credit bureaus Equifax, Trend, tune In, and Experience, So you could wind up with slightly different information on all three of your credit reports. So when your credit reports get scored, they would be slightly different because they don't contain identical information. So that's
one reason your credit scores can be different. The second reason is that the software, the credit scoring systems that score those reports, they can be different as well. And so it's kind of like you have different versions of operating systems on your phones. Right, So you've got Android and you've got Apple. You've got two competing brands there with different operating systems that run the phones. Right. So
with credit scoring, you've got Phyco Advantage score. Those are the two main credit scores that lenders can buy to score for credit reports. Fco has their own credit scoring systems. Vantage Score has their own credit scoring systems, And if a FICOS credit scoring system looks at a credit report and advantage score software looks at a credit report, they're
going to get slightly different numbers. It's like if you stepped on a scale and weighed yourself in pounds and you stepped on another scale and weighed yourself in killograms. You're the same person, but you're going to get two different numbers, all right. So that's how that works. So Fyco, advantage Score two different credit scoring systems, and then each one of those credit score brands they've got different versions
of their credit scores too. So you think one point zero, two point zero, three point zero, four point zero, and that's how we add up to hundreds of different credit scores. That's a really short version. It's a little more complicated of that because then you've got specific credit scores for like the auto industry and the mortgage industry and the credit card industry. So it does get really complex. And that's why I say credit scoring is a very complicated topic,
and it's so easy to get confused. But the good news is If you can focus in on your credit report, you've got a lot more control over what appears on your credit report. You don't have control over what a lender chooses to use to score you and to predict your credit scoring behavior. You know, they might choose to use a FICO score eight to predict your credit behavior
and decide how to price your loan. You can't control that, but you can decide and have a lot more control over the information that's going to show up on your credit report itself. That's where you've got the control and the power is to check your credit report, make sure that information is correct, and you know, you get to decide what kind of loans you open, what kind of credit cards you apply for, what kind of balances you
carry on your credit report. So that's where you have the control and the power is the information that's on your credit report itself.
Okay, let's stick a pin in credit report. I want to come back to that, but first I want to know how does having a good credit score save someone money? Because it's this big goal for some reason, that we all have before we're you know, when we first start getting our personal finances together, we're like, oh, I need to have a good credit score. I don't know why, but I got to have it. So, like, how can that save someone money?
My John have done some notes on this because the power of a good credit score is it's really more than most people realize. So there is a tool online that anybody can use. It's called the Myfiico Loan Saving Loan Savings Calculator. It's free. You can use it to estimate your payments on like mortgages and auto loans based on your credit score. And so I looked up today how much you could potentially save on a mortgage based
on your credit score. So right now, in June, the National Association of Realtors said the median home price right now is a little over four hundred and ten thousand dollars. I know it varies a lot depending on where you live in the country, So I just went with the median price for the US. If you have a six to twenty FICOS score, you would get an estimated APR right now of around eight point three three eight percent.
That's going to put your monthly payment. I know, I hate rates right now, that's another that's a whole another topic. That's going to put your monthly mortgage payment at around three thousand, one hundred and six dollars a month, and over the course of thirty years, assuming you never refinance or sell that home, you're paying a total of seven hundred and eight thousand dollars plus in interest, and that hurts.
I know if you had a seven hundred and sixty FICOS score though, so a much higher fycoscore that's considered an exceptional FYCO score where six twenty is considered good or fair. Instead of an eight point three three eight percent APR, you're getting now a much lower six point seven four to nine percent APR that drops your payment to two thousand, six hundred and fifty nine dollars a month.
So you're saving four hundred and forty seven dollars every month on your mortgage payment, and your total interest is five hundred and forty seven thousand dollars. Over the life of the loan, you save one hundred and sixty thousand dollars seven hundred and eighty one one hundred and sixty thousand plus dollars one hundred and sixty thousand dollars plus saved because of a good BIKEO score. That's huge. A
good credit score. Now that assumes, of course, you never sell the home, you never refinance, and a lot of us do that on a thirty or fixed loan. But that's just tens of thousand. That's over one hundred thousand dollars in savings on your biggest sixpence a mortgage. But if we look over, a good credit score can also save you money on your car payment. In most states, your car payment is also based on your credit score to some degree. If you have an excellent credit score.
The average insurance premium on a car loan right now is on a car payment. Sorry, average car insurance premium is one thousand, seven hundred and sixty four dollars. With bad credit, it's almost double that amount, three thousand, four hundred and seventy nine dollars annual insurance premium. Yeah.
A lot of the times we just think about saving money on loans, right, But yeah, you don't think like your insurance also takes into account your credit score.
Yeah, it can be double. It's crazy. Your credit score can almost sometimes be more influential over your auto insurance premium than your driving record, which I find crazy, but it's true.
That is wild. Yeah, yes, that's crazy.
There's a lot of people in Florida I want to retake their driving exam.
Yes, but they've got great credit.
But it's a way for insurance companies to predict. They predict the likelihood that that customer will file a claim. People with bad credit are more likely to file claims that will cost the insurance company money. WHOA, That's what it comes down to.
It's interesting because we often talk about wanting to cut expenses and look for savings opportunities when it comes to our biggest expenses, and housing and transportation are two of those biggest expenses, and you're highlighting exceptionally well how important it is to have a good credit score on those big expenses. I mean, even people who live debt free will often need to take out a mortgage if they
need to buy a home. Not many of us can purchase a home with cash, and so in those situations, having good credit is very necessary.
M Yeah, you know, even if you're not a fan of credit cards or taking out loans for other purposes, credit can save you. Good credit can save you in other ways that are really important.
Yeah, this question isn't on the outline, but I just thought of it. I know that sometimes people think that without a credit score, you can just use manual underwriting for certain types of loans. What is the cost difference, how common, how rare is manual underwriting? Like, I don't know if you know this yourself, but like I looked at it once and it was just so much more expensive than doing just running with my credit score. So I have to assume that maybe it's come up for you before.
So this would be a better question for a mortgage specialist. I do believe it would be considered a higher risk loan, so I think the rate's going to be a bit higher. I certainly know you're going to have to have a higher down payment in a situation like that, which for some people that's fine, but that's not going to be an option for everyone. Because I know it's been quite some time that I wrote an article about this years ago,
and the less things have changed. I believe a twenty percent down payment was absolutely necessary in situations like that. But if I were writing an article about this again today, I would reach out to a mortgage specialist and get quotes.
So I do think it's something where you're going to have to jump through more hoops potentially potentially have a higher interest rate, and at the minimum, I would think you'd have to, you know, have a higher down payment of twenty percent or more, which if you have it, great, that's fine. But for people who have to save up
for that, maybe that's okay. Maybe that's not if we're talking about a year ago or so, or a year and a half ago when rates were low and they were saving, maybe they missed out on a really good opportunity by having to say, and now rates are up, So it's a gamble, just depending on and nobody has a crystal ball and can predict the future. I get that, but I think working hard to have good credit it's always an important asset to have. That doesn't mean you
have to borrow. If you're not comfortable using credit cards, that's fine. I still personally love credit cards, love the rewards that they get, but I never revolve a balance from month to month's mistakes I've made in the past more than once. Thankfully have learned from those lessons as I've gotten older. And why is here from those mistakes that I have made. But I get that they have pitfalls and things like that that we have to learn
to overcome. But even if you, you know, are against using credit for those purposes, there are still benefits to working hard to earn a good credit score, even just the savings that can get you on car insurance or you know, down payments on deposits for utilities and other things like that.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, they looked at my credit score. They did a soft pull yep. So yeah, oh my gosh. Are there any other like things that are going to just make our jaws drop that people do will do a soft poll of your credit For.
If you switch mobile phone carriers, they typically look at your credit That's another one.
I mean, I guess they want their money. They want to make sure you're going to be telling yourself phone bill. Interesting. Okay, So for the person who is now thinking, okay, I should check my credit report, like, what, what is my credit score? Is there any benefit to looking at that regularly? You're talking about having a good credit score can help save you money. Is there any benefit to just looking at your credit report? What could be done from there?
How could we use that information to save us money?
Yes? So I recommend a bare minimum. You should be checking your credit you know, once or twice a year. I check them one every month. That may be, you know, a little overwhelming for some people. So start where you're comfortable. But you can get free copies of your credit reports from Equifax, TransUnion, and Experience at Annualcreditreport dot com. This is all right, every American adult consumer has under the
fair Credit Reporting app. Again, that's Annualcreditreport dot Com. Now, those free reports do not include free copies of your credit score. But there are lots of places you can
get your free credit scores too. If you have credit cards, A lot of credit card issuers give away free monthly credit scores AMX, Chase, Discover Citybank, a lot of different credit card issuers give away free credit scores just as a matter of customer service, because they're checking your credit score in the background every month anyway to make sure it doesn't change. If your credit score drops a lot, your card issuer might actually close your card on you.
So anyway, as a matter of customer service, sometimes they will share that with you. Then there are your websites out there, a like Credit Karma. Experience gives free credit scores. I believe TransUnion will give a free free credit score through TransUnion if you sign up my Fiico, you can get a free credit score. They all have options where you can sign up for their paid products as well.
But if you are like me and you want to go to a couple of websites and get your freebie from here and there each month, it's once you set it up the first time, it's pretty easy. I do it in probably five or ten minutes top each month and wind up with a score from each credit bureau for free.
What are you looking at for you an expert in this field, what are the key pieces that you want to be monitoring and keeping a pulse.
On when I check my reports, so not the scores, the reports, I'm making sure to keep an eye out for new credit inquiries, so that is where anyone has checked my credit report that could indicate that someone is applying for credit in my name. If I initiated a credit application, that's fine, because I know I applied for credit, that's not going to concern me.
But if there is.
A credit inquiry that I didn't initiate, that might be a red flag because maybe someone's applying for something fraudulently.
So that's one thing I'm looking for, And then I'm also going to glance at my other accounts and just make sure there's nothing funny going on, No late payments that shouldn't be there, because sometimes creditors can report things that are wrong, right, I'm looking for errors are there, and really, because I keep such good tabs on my credit anything negative that shows up on my credit report is a problem. I shouldn't see any late payments. I
shouldn't see any collection accounts. I shouldn't see anything negative on my credit report because if it's there, I'm assuming something has gone wrong. And I did have Let's see here, it was in twenty twenty two. I believe it might have been twenty twenty one. It was twenty twenty one. I had a medical collection show up on my credit report that shouldn't have been there, and it was because
it was after the birth of my son. The hospital never build my insurance company and they never contacted me. And the only way I found out that a bill wasn't paid was they had turned me over to a collection agency and a collection account showed up on my credit report, and so I had to go through the process of contacting the hospital and saying, hey, I never
got that bill. I had contacted my insurance company. They never got the bill, so the hospital billing department called the bill back from the collection agency and then they submitted it properly to the insurance company. It got paid, but I did have to go through the process of fixing that. And the reason I found out something was wrong was I saw it on my credit report. Yeah, and it had dropped my score over one hundred points.
When that happened, the same thing happened to me. It was with the birth of my son, and we had switched insurance companies, so they build the wrong one and they just never build the right one, and yeah, sent me to collections. Watch out if you have a baby, just watch out. Yes, so many.
Oh and it's a pain because it takes hours and hours to fix that kind of thing.
Hmm.
But I was the one who's going to pay the price if it doesn't get fixed. You know, it's my credit score and my credit report that's damaged. It's not the hospital or my insurance company who's paying the price.
It's me.
So unfortunately, you know, I'm the one who needed to clean up the mess, and I did. I was able to do it faster than most people get to I wrote an article about it on for Parents, so at least I got to tell the story and hopefully help some other people, and so I guess there was some positive out of it.
It's helpful to know that there are pathways too correcting errors. I think previously I had thought, well, okay, that is what it is. The credit score dropped. But it's helpful to know you can look for errors and you can dispute them, and they can be removed and your credit score can go back up and be restored to where it was.
Yes, yeah, if I recall, I'll have it's been, like I said, a few years, but I think it was fixed in thirty days or less, so it wasn't the end of the world. There are definitely ways to fix the issues. You just have to be proactive about doing that.
Yeah, definitely.
And I won't say it's super fun. It really it sucked, but it's fixable at least.
So yeah, I think that's the main thing. Like looking at your credit report. I know people have also found actual loans or cards or things with balances that they forgot they had. So it wasn't even like inaccurate. It was just like, oh my gosh, I forgot I had this, So it's something that can be like nipped in the bud really quick. But you don't know if you're not checked your credit report. And when you check your credit report and make sure all this stuff is like neat
and tidy, then your credit score benefits from it. So are there any other like specific strategies or tips to improve a credit score significantly and or quickly? Like what's the main meat we're looking for?
So if someone's looking to boost their credit score, the first thing I would recommend is go to that website annualcreditreport dot com or some other site, get copies of all three of your credit reports, go through them. First thing you want to do is look for any errors or inaccurate information. And if you see anything that's wrong, you can dispute those errors with the appropriate credit bureau. That's step one, and you can dispute more than once
if you have to. Number two is I would say, take a look at your credit card balances with FIICO scores. For example, your credit card balances make up a significant portion of your FICO score, So if you can work on paying down your credit card balances, it's going to have a very positive impact. On your credit scores in most cases, and of course it's going to have a positive impact on your overall finances and budget too by saving you money. So paying down credit card balances is
a great way to improve your credit score. There's a couple of ways to do that. If you're looking to clear up to boost your credit score as quickly as possible, you want to focus on the credit cards with the lowest balances first because zeroing out a card will bring it to zero percent credit utilization rate, and that's very good for your credit score. So credit card balance is
focusing on the smallest card balances first. And then if you have a loved one like a spouse or a parent, or like a close stabling who has a credit card that is in good standing and paid off, especially if it's an older account, if they could add you as an authorized user to that account, that could potentially boost your credit score very quickly. That's another tip is becoming an authorized user on a friender family member's credit card.
But that card's got to know, have no late payments and preferably be paid off.
So I didn't realize this, but if you have the choice when paying off credit cards to choose like one that has a maybe a higher interest rate, but they're all going to have pretty high interest rates to pay off that highest interest rate. One versus one that's like the smallest balance, specifically, the one with the smallest balance will help you improve your credit score quicker, that's what you're saying.
Yes, if your goal is to improve your credit score, focus on the smallest balance. Now, if your goal is to save money, if your goal is purely financial, yeah, I get it. You want to go with the dead avalanche and you want to focus on that interest rate. So we got that snowball, which is focus on the lowest balance and that's good for credit score improvement. We got that avalanche, which is focus on the highest interest rate first. That's going to save you money faster. Okay,
Either one's good for your credit score. One is slightly better. So we're not talking about good and bad. We're just talking about slightly better for your credit score.
Nice. Yeah, but all things given that, like they're all twenty percent interest focusing on the smallest one first, Yeah, we'll give you that boost more quickly if you're in a time crunch. But we always choose to save money over improving a credit score. Yeah, which it just depends on what you're trying to do. Like, if you're trying to get that over, if you're just on that line to like exceptional credit to get that loan, then maybe you pay the little extra interest to break that line.
But yeah, maybe temporarily to qualify for a much better rate on a mortgage.
Yeah, it's a very fine line. Very few people will fall into that.
Group, right, and then you're probably gonna adjust your strategy as soon as you're done qualifying for the mortgage and switch back over to focus and on paying down the highest interest, right. Yeah, that is a short term strategy. I agree.
Do you have any recommendations, Michelle or someone who might have poor credit and doesn't have a friend or family who wants to add them as an authorized to you? Sir? I hear a lot about these different sites where you can kind of add your phone payment to and I don't know how legit those are, but anything people can do who might not have extra resource around them.
Yeah, So Experience boost is free. It only helps your experience score, but you can add certain bills to like your experience credit report. I believe it's like streaming services potentially rent. There's a few different things you can add to like your experience report for free. There are a few others out there for a fee where you can add like rent or phone bill to your credit report for a fee. They're usually only one credit bureau specific.
I think there's one that you can pay to add to TransUnion and I can't think of the name but off the top of my head, but there's a few of those. You want to definitely do your research before you consider something like that, make sure the price is worth it. They're not going to add things to all three credit bureaus. Typically it's just one or two. There
are some credit builder loans that I like. I know Self offers one, credit Strong offers one, and they will add positive tradeline to like all three credit bureaus, and these I like because they're actually helping you build savings at the same time. So this is for someone with very poor credit, and basically it's like it is an installment loan, but the lender holds on to the money. So it might be like a five hundred dollars loan or a thousand dollars loan, and the lender holds on
to the money. And you pay fifty or you'll have
to look the terms are different for everybody. That you'd pay like fifty or one hundred bucks a month to the lender, and once you pay that amount off plus interest whatever the interest they charge, they'll report your payments to the credit bureaus each month that you make them on time, and when you're done, they will release those funds to you, plus any interest that it earned while it was in the CD or the savings account that they held the money in, minus the fees that they
take out. They do take out some fees, but then you've got this little small emergency fund that you've saved over the course of six to twelve months while you were making the payments, and you've got positive credit history on your credit report. So I think it's a pretty positive product. The fees are not horrible. I'm not I can't know off the top of my head what the interest rates are because I think they vary per person. But it's nothing insane. It's nothing like payday loan level,
nowhere near that. I don't even think it's in your credit card level. And I think it's worth it for the positive credit history you get, especially for someone with poor credit, who's going to have trouble qualifying for traditional credit products. Plus, at the end of that process, you've got a small emergency fund that you could now take and put in a high yield savings account and continue to build on. Or you could take it and pay off some other debt you have. But you can do
something positive with that money. You know that you build So I really like credit builder loans as a way to build credit too.
That's great. It's like a kind grandparent helping you get right with money.
Yes, I like that analogy.
Yeah, you know what else is kind and helps you build.
MM and maybe a grandparent. The bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week.
Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.
Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
That's bill but.
Flow bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week. See what I did there with the billed? Hun. I don't know if that's a pun as a dad joke, maybe Michelle. Every week we invite our listeners and our guests to give us their bill of the week, and we know you're familiar with the segment and we are looking forward to hearing your bill.
Well, my bill is a little tiny bit of a stretch, so I hope it's okay.
Oh the stretch here the better.
It's a man named Bill E.
Billy.
So it's my seventh grade English teacher, Billy Miller. I hope the why is acceptable on this with that.
But yeah, Lucy Goose, Yeah, of course. Okay.
So I now am a professional freelance writer and have been a full time writer for almost six years now, But in seventh grade, let me tell y'all, I've struggled so much with English, Like, oh, I could not tell the difference between like an an adverb and a noun, and I was just it was awful, Like he had to tutor me after school, I don't know, every day for months and months, and I just am really thankful for all the extra effort he put in to help
me pass seventh grade English, because who knows if he had not done that, I might have just had a completely different career path later in life and not be writing about personal finances, you know, and credit here today. So that is my ode to Bill E. Miller and I am very grateful for him.
Yay, thank you, mister Miller.
Yay, what an impact Bill, Yes I've had on you and the trajectory of your life. Yes, we, I mean we love all the bills, the flexible bills, the stretchy bills, and especially the bill's about bills.
This is yes, named Bill is Jill's favorite.
Oh good, I'm glad we have yet to have a person named Bill call in. But hey, if you're out there listening and that's you and your name's Bill, this is your sign. Visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill.
We did have somebody whose son, somebody whose son was named William.
Or Bill, right, so Bill themselves their name is Bill. Yeah.
I just don't want to forget him, right, don't forget him.
I won't forget.
Sorry to keep going.
I'm sorry about Bill.
You keep going.
To whatever you want. Y'all know we're taking it all. We love it. We're here for it. Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash Bill. We're waiting, and now it's time for be wrong.
All right, So today's vulnerability round. It's not the question I really wanted. I really wanted to know everybody's credit score.
But I saw that in the outline.
I'm like, nah, and yeah, Jill changed it. Jill changed it. Some of us are proud of our credit score.
Well, yeah, that's but then that's where it ends.
Just like, what were you? Okay, it's a credit measuring contest.
I know I had mine ready, so I don't know what it's been changed to. I'm nervous.
Now, what's the first way you started to build credit? Like, what was your gateway?
Creditway credit?
Yeah, Michelle, you are a guest, you can go first, Okay. So I am very much an elder, elder, grandma millennial. So I was in college back when they still like had the tables set up credit card companies did on campus and like promised you a free beach ball if you opened up a credit card. So I opened up a credit card in college, and thankfully I did not wrack up a mountain of credit card debt with it. Somehow I avoided that. But I opened up my first credit card while I was in college, I think with
US Bank. I can't remember if that's been a minute, but I opened my first credit card for my beach ball or beach towel, whatever, whatever it was that I got, used it to finance the trip I think, to Disney World, and eventually paid it off. But yeah, beautiful, Yah, they can't can't do that. Do you still have it? Do you still have that card?
I don't know. I wish I did, because my credit score, which we did not share, might have actually been a little bit higher if I still had that old card from the early two thousands.
You're welcome to share what you're proud of. You want to share credit score, I'm just not going to make you.
No, you're fine.
Mine was very similar to yours. Michelle. Credit card in college, I think, yeah, one of those tables. What were they doing? They're just like luring us in. I don't even remember getting anything free, but I do remember that my credit card on it was Starry Night by Van Go and I just thought that was the coolest that it had this like beauty one of my favorite art pieces printed
on the credit card. Honestly, I forgot them that I had the credit card, Like sometimes i'd look at it, I'm like, what am I going to do with this? I was scared of it, probably like I don't know how to you? Right, Yeah, I can't. I cannot. I definitely didn't rack up debt. I can't even tell you if I actually spent any money on it, but I held on to it because I thought it was so beautiful.
College. You do love beautiful things.
I do.
We're gonna go three for three. It was college, but it was not at a Chase actually had a branch on campus. So I went into the Chase that was in right outside the student union, like on the main street. It was a very large the largest university in Florida, so it had like a main street and it was on main street. And I didn't get anything for free. I just got but it was black, and I had a black credit card. Yeah I know, and I vote
so cool. Had a five hundred dollars limit, which I promptly maxed and just kept just paid off a little and just kept going maxing it out. And I still have it, still having credit Yes, oh, I don't use it anymore. They don't have that card anymore. And they just changed it to the Chase Freedom So it's like the best all around, no annual fee starter credit card.
They just changed it to that. I was not into credit cards when I got it, so I just lucked out, but uh yeah, I still have it because there's no annual fee, and it makes now when I'm like kind of getting credit cards and canceling them every year, it keeps my credit history just a little longer than it would be because I got that in two thousand and seven.
Yeah, so fifteen of your five foot score is based on your age of credit, so it's really nice to have an older one like that.
Yes, oh wow, well done, Jack.
I wish I hadn't closed mine.
Yeah, I'll close all my other cards like before the annual fee hits. I don't care, but this one, because it doesn't have an annual fee, I keep it. I keep her. She's with me. She's blue now she's not as cool as she was before, but neither am I.
So I didn't know you bentioned, but I do think you're pretty cool now.
Yeah.
Thanks, that was cooler then now you wear black almost exclusively. Yeah, well, Michelle, this has been fun. Where can people get more from you? I know this is kind of just the tip of the iceberg on understanding credit, and it's worth understanding. So how can they hear more on this from you?
We can find me online at credit writer dot com. And I'm also on Instagram at credit writer and if you are on the former Twitter now x, it's at Michelle L. Black.
Oh, Michelle, thank you so much for educating us. I learned some stuff about credit that I'm going to take with me, so I hope everybody else got something to thanks Michelle.
Thank you guys so much for having me. I've had a great time. It was awesome to be here today.
That that was great, That was synced strong helpful. I do not look up my credit report monthly. I'm about a once every year. But she did challenge me to look into it more. I think I am afraid of finding errors and needing to fight it. I'm so tired of fighting. But at the same time, she made a good point that it's only gonna hurt me. So yeah, it can be done if I find errors. Of course, yes, I want to correct those errors. I don't want to remain in the dark on that.
So yeah, the longer you wait, the bigger the fight.
Yeah.
So that is a case for checking your credit report. It is so common to have errors on your credit report that will bring your credit score down. It's not even rare. It is guaranteed that sometime in your life, you will have an error in your credit report. So the more often you're checking it, the more quickly you
can find yours when it happens. And yeah, I guess I knew like on Autopilot, but I didn't know about these other places that do a soft pool of your credit score when giving you rates, like the insurance and the cell phone Like, yes, I remember now that I had to give them my Social Security so for them to do a soft poll, and I didn't even think about why my utilities I got. Actually I didn't have to put a down payment on my utilities because of
my credit score was high enough. So yeah, that is another case outside of the loans that we know credit will save you money on. So I am so thankful for Michelle for having this conversation with us.
I'm also thankful for you all who are listening. And we love, love, love love all of your kind reviews. They are fun for us to read because the other version of the reviews are not the most fun. It's this kind of you know, extremism that happens, but we love the kind ones. And this one comes from Rosy Journalism titled Relatable Informative, Well edited shout out. It's real talk about all the finance and frugality trends that cycle
through our culture. I love the balanced conversation and the open minded support of everyone wherever they are in their financial journey. These podcast episodes have a few different formats. Some are interviews, others our views of articles on a certain topic. I enjoy them all as they are well edited and hosted by two people with professional exchanges and voices. No useless banter, just fun, informative conversation. Man Rosy Journalism
go into bat for us. She's listened and read other reviews that kind of you know, take the wind out of our say that may or may not actually be constructive criticism. But Rosie Journalism here to help other people find a podcast that might work for them. You really did the thing. I feel like I got a ride or die in you, Rosie Journalism. Thank you.
Yes. So, if you enjoyed this show, we would love if you would take a minute to leave a rating or in review. It helps potential new listeners know what our show is all about and if you need a tip on how to do it, Rosie Journalism just like five stars on this rating and review your If you want us to rate your rating and review, just post it and we'll read and rate it.
See you next time.
Gorugle Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. Okay, Jen, does this have to do with why you're tired of fighting actually fighting?
It might on some level, for sure. I don't totally want to tell this story, but it does need to be told. You need to know. I went to Ohio to visit my sister and my four niece and nephews, and one night was babysitting them while my sister and her husband went out. And it was about ten thirty at night, watching TV, feeling like, oh, I'm starting to get sleepy, might turn in when all of a sudden,
something flies overhead I am inside. No, huh, it's black, I scream, thinking at first, okay, it's a bird, still scream worthy because it's something wild inside turns that it's a bat.
Yep, I knew exactly that's what you're gonna say.
A bat is flying around in this house where I am also in close proximity. Now, thankfully, my brother came over to spend time with me and help me watch the kids, so I was not alone in the house again. Thank goodness. But he's asleep, fast, asleep on the couch. I'm screaming. He still doesn't wake up until I'm like, baba, that's what I call him. There's a bet in the house. The poor thing. This is the worst way to wake up.
He had been sleeping for like two hours. Yeah, that means he fell asleep at eight thirty whatever, eight thirty to ten thirty. He's passed out on the couch. Wakes up to me screaming. There's a bat in the house. There's a whole lot of people who live in this house. My sister's mother in law is also there. She comes
up from the basement like prepared and ready. She's got a brimmed hat on because currently side story, she grew up going to a camp every summer where there were bats a lot, and she saw someone who had a lot of big, curly hair get a bat caught in their hair, and then his wife had to cut the live bat out of his curly hair. Yeah, beware all you people. I mean, I love curly hair. It's beautiful. Just put a hat on it.
If you're looking at me and you're saying all you.
Be careful, be careful around bats. But she comes up ready with hat on. She's like, is there a bat? How did you know? I hate that it has happened before. I hate that this has happened before. I hate that your sister has bats. Yep, yep, not on purpose. They are wild, they're not pets.
Did not choose this life.
Oh yeah, so she's like, get the butterfly catcher. So we did that. Anyhow, I don't want to keep telling you how it entirely ended, in case we've got bat lovers who listened into the show. But yeah, I was terrified. My brother and my sister's mother in law did actually successfully capture the bat, which is wild to me. Meanwhile, I did my job of just screaming that's what I did,
Although no I did. I show bravery and courage for like ten seconds when I went upstairs and closed the kid's bedroom doors so that the bat would not fly in and bite them. And I did have to get close to the bat in order to do that.
Wow.
Yeah, they sent the bat in for rabies testing. We have yet to get the results back, so we shall see. But that happened to me, and I'll never be the same. I hated every minute of it.
Yeah, but like your sister has bats, so you went into that house knowing.
And I may not go back again. Yeah, they all can come visit me where the gators are the only thing you got to be worried about, and may stay outside.
Yeah.
Typically there's no fireplaces they can enter into my home.
They do not enter through the fireplace that we know of. They can, and we will not talk to them because they will show us what they're capable of and they are listening.
I got no way to take that into this episode. It just is fresh on my mind. I'm tired of fighting there.
You are tired of fighting.
I'm not gonna look up my quite yet because I'm tired of fighting and scream I.
Get it, and not knowing yourself. You give yourself some rest until that rabies test comes back.
Thank you,