STACEY TISDALE CREDIT CHRONICLEs

I did bring some people with me today. We are very happy to have Marcus and Tina, who are a couple that we're going to be taking through an eight week process to help them get their finances in order to help them get their debt under control, and everybody's going to be able to learn about their story from a series Angela and I are doing with Wealth Wednesdays called Credit Chronicles, which we're doing with an app called self that I know a lot of people really wanted

to learn more about what helps you save money and build credit. And we also are very honored to be joined by Stacey P. So we got Stacey t and Stacy P. And Stacy P is a financial well being coach with Operation Hope, and Operation Hope is I think the biggest financial empowerment organization in the world. They have curriculum for students and they have their Hope centers all over the country where people can get free credit and financial counseling, So that's why we wanted to bring that

to your attention. So between Self and Operation Hope, we got y'all covered, all right, So let's go over the couple here that we have, Marcus and Tina. So clearly you guys are working with Operation Hope and with Self to rebuild your credit. So there must be some financial issues that you have, because I always hear that financial reasons are one of the main reasons that couples actually end up getting divorced. We do have financial issues. We have student loan and we have some credit cards. So

how did you get so hurt with credit? Was it when you went to college they gave you those free credit cards and you rock them out and then you realize that the interest rates were Actually that was a little bit different than that. What it needs. The student loans is more of the biggest thing there. You didn't go crazy with the credit, but you know it's still there where we need to work on it. But it's not that way. So how much student loan? How much in debt are you guys? Student loan is over one

hundred thousand. Student loans are about one hundred dollars. The credit cards are about ten twelve. Yes, And when couples get married, you guys have each other's debt, right is that? Is that correct? Even if one of you has good credit and the other one doesn't matter, you get you received that debt. Rememb when I graduated out of college and I paid my my U my school loan off and I was getting a refund check and I was so excited, and I just got married and they took it.

And I couldn't understand why they took it. But I got married and my wife had had had student loans and in credit problems, and they took all andy. That's and they took all my money and I was mad. But that's why when you get married, that's interesting. Did you get into us last year? Yeah? Did you guys discuss that before you get married, like what financial situation you were in? Yes, I know that he had student loan, but I didn't know as he said that they take

you all. I was looking forward to talk about that. I was. I was honest with with that part. Before we got married. I was like, I gotta let you know something. You know, this is my student, My situation with the student loans and credit. So I was honest with her. She still decided to marry me even after all. That's so important because so many couples aren't honest with each other before they get married or even in their marriages.

I think we were talking about we got thirteen million Americans committing something called financial infidelity, where like, you know, half the millennial population doesn't even know how much their spouse makes. They don't tell each other about different accounts. They don't tell each other about their debt or if you get a bonus, or if you get a bonus with all that stuff. And I remember when I was little, my mom and I would go shopping and we'd hide

those bags. I'm sure I did that. But you know, these two were really honest with each other. And that's a lot of people will ask me, you know, should I even date or marry somebody if they have a bad credit score? And the real truth is, and they're such a great example. Anybody can get into financial difficulties, but if someone's honest with you, and if they're willing to take a plan, it's even the journey you can

go on together. That's what's really important. Is that's something now those stacy do people look at Like when I was dating my wife, we didn't look at each other's credit or anything like that. That wasn't an option. We just in love. I don't need to Charlemagne, did you you and your wife within the yellow at each other credit? No, I didn't have no credit with no credit. In fact, in fact, she actually, she actually was one of the people that told me to get a secure DEMOCRD to

build credit. Yeah, I didn't. It wasn't a conversation. Is that a conversation you suggesting people should have now when they, oh, yeah, I know my boyfriend's credit score and everything. Stats are saying that half of millent that's important and half of millennials. I think, um, and I think one of our most popular Wealth Wednesdays was when you and Jia came on and you talked about how you kind of were always just a team from the get go when it came

to your finances, you had each other's backs. You did different things. Every person sin is different. What's gonna work for you, what's gonna work for Charlemagne works for them? Some people it just might be their personality. They want to know everything. But the most important thing is that you want to find someone who's going to be honest with you. The one thing that I will say, and I can speak to this from personal relationships I've had too.

I could say every personal little relationship I've had that didn't work out, and I have not that I've had very many, but I could tell we had such a hard time talking about money that it was really a sign that there were going to be bigger communication problems, right,

And that's what it really comes all about. If you can have empathetic sex, you should be able to talk about your credit, right, But if you have a hard time talking to somebody about money, it's a good indication that you're going to have a hard time talking to them about a lot of things. That's really It doesn't matter, you know, your debt level. You guys like Charlemagne and they were, you know, you have a good thing going with your spouses. It doesn't matter all of those things.

But it's just an indication. And you know, there's rules of engagement now. So with the depth that you guys have, is it something that y'all think about a lot? Is it stressful? Is it causing any issues at all? Yeah, we think about it. A lot. You know, it's always right there in our face every month, you know, with the bill. But like you were talking about before, me and my life are very honest with each other. That's

one of the biggest things for her, she said. You know, before we got into anything, she was letting me know about honesty with her. So as far as you know, it does create a little bit of stress, you know when you know you just have to think, like, man, I just got paid, I gotta put this much towards this and you barely have anything left over. But it does create a not issues between us, but it's stress because you know it's there. You know it bothers us. What.

So you guys are taking charge now to try to figure out how can you get things together financially. So let's talk about how Stacy and Operation Hope is helping in the self app Also, so Operation Hope we through a holistic approach when we're counseling individuals because being truthful in your marriage, people need to be truthful with themselves first, and a lot of people are in denial about their

financial situations. So Operation Hope and helping people develop business not business individual spending plans also known as a budget but also a savings plans. So we give people to tools to rebuild their financial selves and creating a legacy. Operation Hope is one of the premises is to create a financial legacy. And in communities with minorities, the conversation is just different. And so what we do is we

give people access to information and to resources. And one of the greatest resources that we're finding or through these apps. And one app that is beneficial is Self and Self has a dual benefit in that it helps you to save, but it also helps you to rebuild or build your credit, so that's really important. So I just encourage people to utilize if you have the ability. Operation Hope. Of course we're free all of our services long term, short term,

our services are free, our workshops are free. But to utilize whatever is out there, whatever resources out there that makes you comfortable as well as you know the app, and I encourage people to journal and that kind of thing. And again, using an app like self that helps you track and self is good in that it's confined savings in that you are committing to a certain amount of

money every month and it's done. They would prefer that it's automated, so that it's done monthly automatically, right, because if you miss one payment, yeah, but they report it to that. The most buller loan is they like, they'll give you five hundred dollars and they'll put it in a CD and you agree to pay twenty five dollars back a month. It forces people to save money because a lot of us use our savings accounts like checking accounts,

so it help gives you that support. But it's also reporting those payments to the credit bureaus, so you're getting you know, those are that's positively reflected on your credit profile and your overall eventually your credit score. We had someone here who started with that app and they had a credit score. Remember Sharita, she was homeless three sixty

two and it got to the eight hundred level. But everything we're talking about here, it's we're talking about money, but you know, there's a lot more to money than money. And one of the biggest problems couples have is we're not really talking about money when they're having fights about money. The way we saw things handled growing up have a

big impression on our financial beliefs. So when you're you have to really lose the notion of right and wrong when you're talking to your spouse about money, because if you're saying something like you're a terrible spender, or you do this, you do that, you're essentially saying your mama, because that's where they you know, got that coming back. That's why money card conversations get so heated. These two are also a good example. Our culture plays a lot

in our financial behavior system. Take for example, I know an African American woman who's married to a Caribbean man and he came to the United States as an immigrant. So he came to the United States wanting to get an education. He came to the United States to build wealth and was able to do that. African Americans have a history a systemic racism discrimination that's prevented them from building wealth. So a lot of times, you know, you'll

see that play out in the relationship. You have to examine, Okay, what are those different attitudes, what are those different habits, and how do we get past them. The most important things for couples to remember, you're not talking about money. When you're talking about money, it's a wonderful opportunity to open up and take your relationship to a deeper level. You got to talk about you know, what are those things you saw about spending and invest in growing up?

Here's what I think. Here's what's different, Stacy. I mean, Tina and Marcus are parents. One thing I tell all parents to get on the same page. Ask yourself, what are the five most important things that we want to teach our kid about money? And what do we have to do to change our own behavior to walk the walk and be that example, and those things help you get on track. So money can really help you deepen

your relationship and every level. Or again, it can show you where things might not work out, because if you can't talk to somebody about that, and if they're not being honest to you about that, then you might have some bigger issues down the line. And while you talk about cultural differences accordance statatistics, they also say that black immigrants end up being economically better than black African Americans

here in the United States. Absolutely. Charlotte Magne and I talked about that a lot when we've had Roger Ferguson here a couple weeks ago. Black immigrants. You know, a lot of what's interesting is the black immigrant communities in the United States, they keep their money in their communities like they're creating business. They're very entrepreneurial and they do

business with each other. African Americans, we've just had this history of having things stolen from us, you know, financial services industry, ripping us off, things like redlining, all these different things, and it's left a psychological toll where it's affected that our belief about ourselves. It's affected, you know, our trust in the financial services industry. So if I'm not mistaken, when you two got married, you had debt.

She didn't correct, right, correct? It is those different attitudes. A lot of immigrants, you know, they have different attitudes about you know, debt and savings and investing and all that plays out in our financial experience. But again, what our message here is always to African Americans to remember about themselves. At the wealth that we've created in face of all of this stuff just shows what we're really

made of and what our resilience. And if we take these deeper dives into money where we I so appreciate you all given us the opportunity to do, you can learn what you're really made of and that self worth has got nothing to do with network. So can anybody sign up like how we got how we're doing credit chronicles? Right? Can any couple sign up to get this counseling and

get their finances back on track? Right? So if they go to Operation Hope's website and we have coaches again throughout the country and it's free and Puerto Rico, right, And it's free, and so you can go on and you can find a coach in your area. And the individual's commitment, the couple's commitment is the coach's commitment. And again and it's free, and it's based on the drive of the client. I call my clients my client family because it is like Stacey t said, it is more.

There's your talking about more than just their finances. So you're talking about what's going on in the home, what's driving it. You're talking about how the family, how they grew up in that kind of thing. So it's really a holistic approach to being financially well. All right, So, Tina, let's say you go out and you want to make a big purchase. Maybe you want to buy yourself, let's say a new purse. Just right now, Hey, I'm just asking the question. I was speaking for him. We can't

handle that right now. Let's just say you're like, Okay, I want to purchase something, it's two thousand dollars? Do you check with Marcus before you make a purchase. I normally don't make big purchases because try to coop on that probably, but normally I talk to if it's something that major, Yes, Marcus, And what's your response if she wants to do something, are you ever like, no, that's not a good idea or do you guys splurge sometimes and say okay, get it. You deserve it. You deserve

of it. Man, it's Valentine's Day. You want to get to sell something? Like. She definitely communicates with me everything, Like I be at work, she'll call me three, four or five times in a road to let me know, Okay, I'm catching this sale, I'm catching this coupon. And it's like she said, nothing really too crazy. And most of the time I kind of understand, like she's what she tries to get as things that we really need, like hey, i'm getting food for the baby, I'm getting this, you know.

Uh So she did call anything she spend and she kind of lets me know though that's that's kind of what if she told you want to spend two thousand dollars on the first how would you reactly? Like? Where we got two thousand dollars? But now do you guys have it? So? Do you have a joint bank account and you guys make all your payments for everything out of that account? Or do you and do you also have separate accounts? How does that work? We have a joint bank account and we do have separate but we

know about it. Um. I'm right now, I'm working, so I kind of just pay what the bills are. Um, I just try to as soon as the check comes in. Hey, this is rant, this is hard payment. Whatever we have to do, I kind of just send it out there, try to get it done immediately. So there's not much left that to So what are the goals for you guys? I know part of it is to get out of debt, but what are the other goals that you have financially? For sure, one is just to get more knowledge and education.

I feel like the more you know then the better you'll be able to take care of yourself. So that's why I tend to grasp from it, or I want to get from it, and you know, honestly to also take a vacation in that worry financially, that would be nice, you know, have a family vacation and help take care for our families, you know, that would be nice and learn things that our parents doesn't know so we could impart it on our kids and our siblings and things

like that. So that's that's something that I would definitely like. Man, I wish this was the kind of show we gave away prizes like vacations, but it's not all we wish now. So you guys are I mean, they're very good communication and all that other stuff, but it was really the student loans. And I know you were telling me you were the first generation and your family to go to

college and you didn't understand private student loan. Yeah. Yeah, I'm the I'm the eldest of my you know, in my family, I'm the first for my parents and both of them you know, from not from America, so they didn't get like, you know, this type of education. So I'm the first person to go to school. And originally I wasn't even going to go to school. I wanted

to do the military. And then I spoke with people and they were encouraging me, no, you know, you should go to school, you know, And I'm like, am I gonna take care of And they're like, yeah, you could get loans you get and I didn't know anything about that stuff, and they encouraged me to do it. And you know, I got a NJ Class loan I think it was, which was a private loan, and I didn't know what the difference between a private loan and like the the federal one. And that's a whole another story

in itself. But yeah, so that put me in a little situation there, Tina. Was there any hesitation on your part being that you didn't have any debt at all? Was there any hesitation where you're like, well, maybe we should clear this up before we get married, Like, what were your thoughts beforehand? I'm definitely, I'm sorry, sorry, Um, definitely there was because as I'm not used to that.

I'm from the Caribbean jammakn so I'm used to just you know, working pain, working pain, and so I'm not used to When he told me how much it was, I had to think about it. But you know, I love him, so I figured something that would be able to tackle together. So and when you guys planning for your wedding, then how does that happen when you're like, Okay, I know we're taking on this debt, but we are

getting married. How did the wedding happen? Because I know some people are hesitant knowing that they have financial responsibilities to spend money on something like a wedding. I had a good Okay, I had a good saving and he helped. I'm not saying I have a good saving and he didn't help, but I was. I had a good saving. We diffend. That's a good woman right there. Many but you guys got married well for you and because you got married a lot younger financially, were you guys in

a good space when you had to play on your wedding? Yeah? No, I was in a good space. I was djan so I had mixtape money and everything was was good. I I you know, the hardest for me was just paying off the loans. I just really didn't care about the most loans at the time. I didn't. I was I just graduated from college. I didn't care about loans. I didn't care about credit cards, I didn't care about anything.

I just thought they'd go away. When you graduate, right, and then when you try to buy something finally, be like, well your credit scores are two hundred and eighty and be like why and they like, you have all this debt and then you gotta go back and fix it. But that's why, you know, I'm really focused and pushing my kids to do things now that they don't have those problems. Like that's why my daughter she owns her own property at this age, so that property can pay

for her school loans and do things like that. Like she said that I didn't know about you know, my parents ever taught me because they didn't know. So the fact that I have, you know, the knowledge, I'm trying to teach them early so they know. And I really, you know, I don't want her to go to the college that she was to go to. I want her to go to another college with they want to give for a free ride, but she wants to go to

other college. But yeah, sorry, that's just personal. But I just, you know, you just try to teach you your kids early so they know and they get the knowledge that we gain. All right, Well, when you know better, you do better. Good luck, guys. Yeah, We'll be watching And where can we watch these credit chronicles again. We're gonna credit chronicles are going to be on every wealth Wednesday.

You can watch them on the Breakfast Club YouTube channel, and we're going to be following them for eight weeks. And we want everybody to be part of this process and go to um power one oh five dot com yeah website and look for self and one of one winner out there is going to get five thousand dollars towards their own debt load, which they're going to use

that money towards their debt loads. So we want to build a family, will want to build a community over the next eight weeks and as they get better, we're going to get better. And we're also going to give one of you in the audience five thousand dollars to

help you get better. Yeah, that's great, and I'm sure everybody can use the lessons that you guys will be learning along the way for themselves too, So that would be really helpful to people as we're all trying to get better economically, financially savvy and get out of debt and get those credit scores up. Give yourself some threadit absolutely all right. Well, thank you guys for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you, thanks so much for having us. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,