Transcript for:
Wells Fargo Financial Literacy Webinar Overview

Thank All right. Welcome, welcome, everyone. I am so excited today. So welcome to the Wells Fargo Beyond College series. It's always a great time over here. Make sure you grab your coffee because we're going to be talking about some credit today. But before we jump right in, we are going to hear from none other than Mr. Dewey Norwood. Dewey? Ashley, thank you so much for that kind introduction and so excited to be on with you all for today. for Unboxed Credit Matters That Matter. And really want to thank our amazing partners at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund for their leadership and engagement as a part of this amazing series. And I'm telling you, buckle your seatbelts because you are in for a great ride with our discussion that we'll be having throughout the course of the day. As we move forward, just a couple of quick items that we'll touch on with things. Dewey Norwood, 24 years now with... the firm with a number of different roles. Very fortunate to be leading the work around our enterprise HBCU strategy. So link on here will take you to, or the QR code, better yet, will take you over to my LinkedIn profile. So feel free to make a connection out there and certainly give us feedback on the content that we have shared. As we continue on with things, just a brief reminder that we always like to give at the top of the call, the team, please remember that today's webinar is being recorded. So if you choose not to participate in a recorded webinar, That was a great time for you to politely disconnect. And at the same time, over about the next seven to 10 business days, we'll be posting the playback link for today's session on the YouTube channel for our partners at TMCF. So just know that you can access it there. And again, to anyone that's watching the playback, thanks for tuning in. If you have questions, comments, or concerns around any of the items that we've addressed, please do not hesitate to contact us and we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Hey, Wells Fargo in the spotlight, virtual show of hands. How many folks listened to our earnings call last week? Taking a peek out there. I maybe see one or two hands coming up. Well, that's a great way to hear about our institution. And so $1.9 trillion in assets, one in three households across the U.S. are going to have a banking relationship in some way, shape or form with our institution. That's a significant number of questions, something like 69 million customers from a global perspective. And also love the fact that we have one, about 10%. But the small businesses here in the U.S. have some banking relationship with our institution in some way, shape, or form. So some pretty impressive numbers there relative to the Wells Fargo from the top of the house perspective. Next slide is also another one of my favorites, really spotlights some of the work that our firm is doing relative to higher education. So again, in the last 10, 12 years, over $107 million in strategic investments that our firm has made to help students. along their academic journey. Could be scholarships, could be programming, could be events that we're hosting in different areas. With all of that is happening through our amazing social impact and sustainability group and through our external engagement team. Also happy to report that now $34 million of that support has been going towards historically Black colleges and universities. So support at a local market level and of course great support with TMCF, UNCF and groups like the Jackie Robinson. foundation. So some pretty significant numbers there. And hey, I think we've got something fun here that we're going to spotlight next if we can, Noel. So as we jump to the next item, we've got a little video for you. All right, Noel, thanks for queuing that up for us. So I'm hoping that folks are starting to see this amazing ad. that is connected in with our HBCU Legends cards. I've actually got 22 of them here. And look at that one. It just happened to be right on top. North Carolina A&T. Pretty impressive there, since we've got so many of you all on the lines with us here for today. But pretty excited about that program and all the great work that's happening. And hey, if you didn't see your college or university represented there, contact us. We'd love to be able to get in contact with you to give more details about how to get your university connected into this amazing... groundbreaking program. Yes, Aggie pride, no doubt, no doubt. Hey, as we continue on with things, we're going to jump over and just spotlight, again, another recent news story that ran on Blavity. And I hope that folks had an opportunity to see this, again, to focus now on the commitments that the firm has been making relative to HBCUs. So scan that QR code when you get a free moment or jump out onto the web and you can access and actually read this full article. It really spotlights. But there are firms longstanding commitments around HBCUs and the things we want to be able to continue to do in the days ahead. All right. My last couple of items here are really, really simple. I think I have to cover off on now just our agenda in just a moment. But before we do that, I do want to bring on Betsy Burton Strunk, wonderful partner of ours from the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Betsy, how does that video make you feel when you see that? Betsy, don't double check your audio one more time for us. Hey, that's the best. Thank you. That's, it's first time using Zoom. It's a really intuitive platform. So thanks for the heads up on that. Hey, the best part about that video that, that we just saw is that Dewey is actually part of the drum line. I don't know if y'all knew that, but you should definitely hit him up on LinkedIn so that he can tell you. I can show you my skills. Listen, let's be clear. We know that. That is Get Up, and we know that is Winston-Salem State University. So shout out to anybody that's joining us from the triad, WSSU band. We love that you all allowed us to use your amazing piece there for part of this. So, Betsy, talk to us about TMCF. We may have some partners that are on, and we're going to talk about this in a moment, that don't know a lot about you all. Can you break it down for them? Well, thank you. So the Red Sea of Sound at Winston-Salem State is, in fact, one of our great partners. So TMCF was founded. 35 years ago, we just celebrated our 35th anniversary just about a month ago. And we are super excited. Isaac Allen, one of our great TMCF scholars, just joined the call. Thank you very much. Anyways, we've been around since 1987, providing scholarships, internship opportunities, providing lots of professional and leadership development for students that attend primarily the 47 publicly supported HBCUs. but also every HBCU across the country. We're very fortunate to be able to partner with organizations like Wells Fargo, who, as you showed in your prior slide, has been donating loads and loads of money, $34 million plus, to the HBCU community, which is truly, truly a feat to behold. We're very lucky, not just from a funding perspective, but also providing thousands of jobs to HBCU graduates. truly impressive and important. So TMCF, you guys can read this. You don't need me to read this for you, but I think as you'll see in the next slide, the most important part is the mission of our organization is to ensure student success by promoting educational excellence. We have educators on the call. You guys are in school. Many of you, not everybody, many of us are lifelong learners, but by promoting educational excellence throughout our whole life. and preparing the next generation of workforce talent through leadership development, making sure that we're all ready for that next phase of our life, whatever that may be. I retired after 30 years in banking and have the great good fortune to work at Thurgood Marshall College Fund. And so every opportunity we have to continue to grow and develop our amazing HBCU talent, we take advantage of doing and we're able to do that through amazing partners like the wonderful, talented, and lovely Dr. Dewey Norwood, to whom I will turn this back over. Betsy, you are very, very kind with you nice words there. And so everybody, be sure to jump online, learn more about TMCF. Hey, my last act for the day, because we're going to have some other folks that will be coming on to walk through the remainder of our broadcast, is just to walk through kind of the run of program here for today. So hey, we've covered off on the recording reminder. That's done. 145. That's our number of registrants as of right now. Hey, but it's not too late. Pass this information over to some of your other partners. Jump on social media, share the information, and we can continue to build the lines here between now and when we close things up at about 530 Eastern Time. Hey, huge shout out from a roll call perspective. Top universities here for this time. North Carolina A&T. You all ran away with it. We've got more Aggie pride on than any other group today, significantly more. So congratulations to you all. And thanks for joining us virtually from the Greensboro space. FAMU also in the mix here. FAMU's got their homecoming coming up next week, as a matter of fact. So you'll see the Wells Fargo team there and engaging through that programming. Texas A&M also in the mix for us today. Hey, Wake Tech is also in our number today. So I think out of the Wake. forest area of North Carolina, if I'm not mistaken. So congratulations to our friends joining us from the Triad area. And then Georgia State came in also running through the tape as one of our top organizations joining today. We also have a number of countries represented. We've got the UK on today. We've got Ghana on record with us today. We've got students on from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and also from Turkey. So this is an international affair here today. international affair, Betsy, with all of our partners that are joining in. Hey, listen, relative to the topics, we're going to be talking about credit. We've got amazing partners that we're going to be introducing in just a moment that are going to be sharing everything from the three C's of credit down to some tools and resources that you're going to need to build your credit in the days ahead. So make sure you take down great notes throughout the course of today's presentation. When we get to the end, Betsy will actually give you some reminders. about how you can access playback. We referenced the TMCF YouTube channel a little bit earlier. We'll also give you some details and have on the screen a QR code where you can scan to actually access our survey. And hey, get social with us. Use the hashtag for TMCF or for Wells Fargo or for other partners that are on to celebrate and share some of the good information with others. All right. With that said, we're going to jump from the Queen City up to Buffalo, New York, and bring on an amazing leader. within our institution in Bonnie Wallace. Bonnie and I have had the privilege of working on these programs together for a number of years, and it's always an honor to be able to engage. So Bonnie, first of all, I hope that things are going great for you there in Buffalo. What is the weather? Because I've been seeing some weather reports of some snow maybe at some point for you guys. Bonnie, double check your mute, Fred. I just didn't want to make anyone else feel bad. so the weather's a little chilly today the weather's a little bit chilly but it's looking like like 70 this weekend oh my goodness i mean yeah and we're all warm and fevered up because of the bills so the weather's there we're impervious to that we're all pulled for the bills unless you're a jets fan like me so we got a got a little thing going on there hey bonnie listen we've got to see you Yeah, you do. Yeah, that's maybe new news for you. Hey, listen, we've got some special friends on that you're going to be introducing for today's broadcast. But give the team 30 seconds on what you do for the firm. I think that's important as you make that transition. Sure. Yeah. So I lead financial health philanthropy. So the Wells Fargo Foundation has several areas of focus. One is financial health. Another is small business. The third is housing affordability. And the fourth is climate and sustainability. And in the area of financial health, as Dewey said, we do have. quite a bit of focus on HPCUs. So I'm really pleased today to be able to have some of our partners that really advance that work. Wells Fargo is a firm believer in putting people in the community in positions where they can help the community. And so that's really what you're going to learn today from Ted Daniels and SFD and PD. Well, Bonnie, we're excited about it. We'll let you take the reins over from here. And final reminder, team, use the chat today. This is a great means of being able to submit. questions are ruled around this. If you put something into the chat, obviously your name will show up publicly, but we're not going to call your name out on the broadcast. So go ahead and submit those questions. Use the Q&A feature. Let's make this an interactive and a really, really great discussion. Bonnie, I'm going to go off the camera and give it to you from here, my friend. Thank you, Dewey. So I am so pleased to have the opportunity to introduce my friend and partner in crime here for now since 2017. Theodore Daniels, and he goes by the name Ted, but if you're looking him up online, you can find him under Theodore. Ted Daniels is a global financial educator with more than 35 years of experience in spearheading strategic financial literacy and professional development training for higher education institutions, individuals, nonprofits, corporate, and government organizations. The work that Ted does is his passion. He has his family involved in this work. And it's been something that he has been driving for many, many years. In 1998, Mr. Daniels founded the Society for Financial Education and Professional Development. So when you hear us talk about SFE. and PD, again, at Society for Financial Education and Professional Development. And he did this to help individuals achieve their personal financial goals by teaching financial management skills. Ted realized that many Americans, especially first-generation college students and underrepresented groups, didn't have access to financial knowledge to manage their finances. And so now for 20 years, the award-winning SFE and PD has taught. financial education to audiences of all ages to help them gain the skills and knowledge they need to become financially empowered. And under Mr. Daniels'direction, SFB and PD has become one of the nation's leading financial literacy and professional development organizations. They've trained over 360,000 individuals, including thousands of students at over 90 colleges and universities nationwide, primarily at historically Black colleges and universities. Mr. Daniels directs SFB and PD's highly- acclaimed annual financial literacy leadership conference, which is coming up just next week. Next week, yes. And that conference is attended yearly by more than 200 of the nation's top financial educators, policymakers, and financial experts. He's regularly interviewed for his financial expertise, and he has won many awards for his leadership. Wells Fargo started working very close. Well, we've been working with you for a long time, even before 2017, supporting your work. But starting in 2017, Wells Fargo provided seed funding for the Student Ambassador Program, which is now at how many HBCUs, Ted? At over 32 HBCUs now, 32, yes. 32, which is incredible. So back in 2017, I do want to share that one of the first participating schools with this program, which is a peer-to-peer financial education program, which really just means we've got students who are trained to teach other students. So it's a... peer-to-peer relationship. One of the first participating schools was NCA&T. So I'm really thrilled to have them on the webinar today. And we've got joining us Dr. Danielle Winchester, and she is with the College of Business and Economics at NCA&T. Dr. Winchester has a PhD from Texas Tech University, and she also earned her MBA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has done a tremendous amount of research. And her research interests include consumer financial decision-making, financial literacy, and gender and racial differences in these domains. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals focusing on economic psychology, financial counseling and planning, as well as practitioner application. So I'm now going to turn it over to Dr. Danielle Winchester. Thank you, Bonnie, for that introduction. Greetings everyone. As Bonnie mentioned, my name is Danielle Winchester and I bring you greetings and welcome from the Department of Accounting and Finance here at the Dease College of Business and Economics at North Carolina A&T State University. As stated, I am currently serving as the chair of the department and I am very pleased and excited that our college is hosting this Beyond College webinar series, Unboxed, Credit Matters That Matter. My personal passion, as Bonnie mentioned in my academic research, centers around understanding and exploring why people make the financial decisions that they do and how to best educate them and empower them to make financial decisions that are better, use a variety of financial instruments, and ultimately create intergenerational wealth. The Dease College and North Carolina A&T State University has embraced and has a firm commitment to transforming students'lives. Both the college and the university have a rich history in doing so that reaches all the way back to 1890. Since that time, A&T has played a prominent role in the struggle for economic and social justice for Black Americans. For example, we should all know that in 1960, four North Carolina A&T freshman students, known as the Aggie Four, sparked the nationwide sit-in movement and refused to leave the Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Dease College, where I serve, has a history 49 years long. of producing graduates who become leaders in corporate America. Examples include Willie Deese, who is our college namesake, the Deese College of Business and Economics, and Dimitri Stockton, along with a host of alumni who serve in Fortune 500 companies as senior vice presidents, vice presidents, and those who serve in big four accounting firms and other corporate leadership roles. This particular program, Beyond College webinar series, made possible by Wells Fargo, SFEPD, and Thurgood Marshall College Fund. meets at the intersection of both of these goals, financial empowerment and the ability to truly transform students'lives. To quote Edmund Burke, if we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. So with that, I would like to say again, thank you. I'm very pleased to host this as North Carolina A&T State University. And I'd like to turn the rest of the program, or the remainder, well, the next section of the program over to Mr. Theodore Daniels, who's a great friend and inspiration to us all. Mr. Daniels. Yes. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Winchester. And thank you, Bunny, for your kind words regarding our work at SFEPD. We were established back in 1998. And we've been moving forward because we had this strong commitment to increase the financial and economic literacy of Americans. specific emphasis on the Black community. So our strategy was to infuse financial literacy training into the education of HBCU students. They would use that information and in turn, enhance their financial well-being, transfer it back to their families, and just have a general uplift for the community by infusing financial education. Because we know without financial education, there are a lot of situations where you just make a bad decision. We want to change that by providing financial literacy training. So we received several awards, as Bonnie mentioned, for our program, and we're excited about it. I think we're the most award-winning financial literacy program in any other entity in the country. We've reached thousands of Americans over the years, and we continue to move forward to ensure that they have not only financial sustainability, but also financial resilience and can help themselves during a pandemic or during a period of an economic cycle. We have non-profit. organization. We received support from organizations like Wells Fargo and it allows us to develop programs and it's built out. As I said before, we put a lot of emphasis on the Black community because we know we got gaps there and we want to fill those gaps so there's better financial well-being as well as long-term economic sustainability. Now you notice here that when we look at what's happening in this country and based on surveys, we build everything around research. We built everything around research. So it's not like what Ted Daniels says, this is what the research says. Usually people who are financially literate, they have delayed gratification of long-term view of life. They have increased savings. They have limited consumer debt, diversified investments, real estate and financial assets. They have sound mortgages and all along the sound mortgages, they have sound mortgages. It didn't make good decisions. I mean, in regards to buy a car. Accumulation of retirement savings, high wealth, and we know we got a big wealth gap in this country. We're trying to close that by infusing financial literacy training into the education of HBCU students. So if you look to the right there, you see impatience, current gratification, we got to have it now with present values. Limited savings, if we have limited savings in African America, we're going to change that. Limited investment, same thing, only 5.6% of African Americans have financial assets. We work on changing that by having special sessions just on investing, casual spending, high debt loads. You know, student loan debt is a big issue for us. So we look at ways how you can manage student loan debt and reduce and limit student loan debt and ways to make investments, parents can make investments to avoid the accumulation of student loan debt by their children. Lower retirement savings, here again, poor loans and limited wealth. So what we're trying to do. is to move everybody over to the left in our work as I'm providing financial minister training. So it's working out quite well. We always look at the private application of it. We don't talk about theory. We just talk about how all the personal money management concepts work. When we talk about credit, we not only do we talk about what credit is, but how do you use credit to maximize credit, to protect yourself, to make sure you can acquire the things you need to acquire to gain wealth. We adjust our presentation, our workshops to meet the needs of our target audience. So we customize our financial education to meet the culture, to meet the needs of the particular population. As I said before, it's research-based, it's interactive, and we have highly skilled instructors. And you'll see that we're going to visit one of our instructors to you today. They're professional, they have professional credentials. They have postgraduate degrees. They are strong in this area of finance, and they deal with people on a daily basis so they understand the issues that need to be brought forward. Now, we have our Mindful Money Skills, financial education workshops, where we deal with credit management and student loan management, how you manage credit, how you manage student loans. They may have a personal money management seminar that covers all the key components of personal finance and how they interrelate, how budgeting affects credit. risk management, insurance, investing, home ownership, you know, on down the line and show you how all those work. Now, since we knew there was a low level of investing in the African-American community, we developed a special workshop just dealing with investing, investing, how investments work, you know, how to develop a strategy so you can accumulate wealth. And homeownership, same situation there for only 43% of us are on a home. So we want to change that. So we have a special session just on homeownership to teach students how that process works and how they can use homeownership as a means to create wealth for themselves and the next generation as well. So we want that to occur too. Now, in 2017, as Bonnie said, I said, look, we have our financial aid educators out there on the campus, HBCUs. Let's have financial education all the time. So we came with the idea of having SFPD student ambassadors. And we've trained those student ambassadors so they can train their peers. So it's a peer-to-peer education program. So it's working out quite well. North Carolina A&T was one of the first schools to participate in our student ambassadors program. So we're excited about the work we've been doing at A&T. So it's resonating and it's growing. Now we have 32 schools. We have relationships with like 70 other HBCUs, but here are some of the schools participating, Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Bennett College, Central State, on down there, Tennessee State, you know, Texas, you can meet with the names, Tuskegee, you know, and we have others in the pipeline. You know, Hampton University, as a matter of fact, the president of Hampton University is going to require all students to take our courses and workshops and to enhance the financial knowledge of the students. So when they finish Hampton University, They are able to maximize the income generated from their degrees and also share with their family and friends and just have a general uplift of their surrounding communities. So we're excited about what we're working, what we've been doing. And we're just grateful for the support that we received from our West Fargo to get us to this point because they took the risk early on to support us and we continue to grow. Now, what I would like to do at this point is to have you welcome. one of our 13-year veterans, Marcus Creighton. Marcus has been with us for 13 years, one of our top financial educators. The faculty and students around the country love it. He's an expert. He's the vice president of wealth management of a firm in St. Louis. So we always pull the best talent that's available to teach financial education to the students at HBCU because We are committed to having a increase in the financial resiliency, stability, and wealth creation of the Black community. So we want to best our best people out there. And our ambassadors are doing the same thing. The ambassadors are very strong, they're very committed, and they're doing great work on the campuses of their respective HBCUs. So I bring to you now, Mr. Marcus Creighton. Thank you, Mr. Ted Daniels and our amazing partners over at Wells Fargo for having us here today. Good afternoon, everyone. I've had the privilege of working with Mr. Daniels and the Society since 2009, doing these workshops all over the country for tens of thousands of students like you all. And it is my privilege again to be here today. But today is not about us. It is about you, the students. Being financially literate prepares you to face challenges in your life head on. And it also gives you the power to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. Unlike what many think, it's not about how much money you have. It's about what you do with the money you have. I could go on all day about those that have made fortunes and blew it all. The list of athletes and entertainers that have made hundreds of millions of dollars, what are virtually broke today is never ending. So if you don't know what to do with a dollar, When you get a dollar, you will always be broke no matter how many of them you earn. Now, one of the first areas we experience in the world of finance is credit. So today, that's what we're going to focus on is credit, the basic ins and outs of credit management. But since we're focusing on HBCUs here today, I want to give you a quick example on financial literacy in the community. Write this number down, $1 trillion. Yep, you got to work. Write down one trillion. Somebody unmute real quick and tell me how many zeros they think that is. Twelve. Twelve. And I applaud you. Normally when I go to campuses and we do this, it takes about 45 minutes. But twelve zeros. One and twelve zeros. Now, why that number is significant for us on the screen and the majority of us in HBCUs. This is just one community. But one trillion dollars is the amount of money we spent last year. just in the African-American community. Our earning power last year was $1.7 trillion. If we were our own country, Black America would be the 15th richest country in the whole world. So with financial literacy and everything that we're talking about, all we're talking about is how to redirect our funds to do something different. Because what if we learn to save 1% of that $1 trillion we spend every year? 1% is just a penny out of every dollar. Nothing crazy, just one penny. Can we do that? That would be $10 billion a year we could put back into the community. And if we got really good and saved a dime, Every time we earn a dollar, we save 10%. That would be over $100 billion a year we can put back into just one community. So we have a lot of information to share and a limited amount of time to do so. So I need all of you to do me a favor, have something to write with, pull out your smartphone. Some of the slides I'm going to tell you to take a picture of because I will not have time to get into the details of every one. But today we're going to cover credit and debt. how to increase your credit score, how to identify actions that could damage your credit, how to build credit, and the use of credit cards. Now, before we go moving full steam ahead, I want you to pull out your cell phone and go to open your browser. You don't have to download an app or anything. And go to paulev.com slash finedu. We're going to do a quick Really quick five question contest here. Now, it is a contest. You have to be accurate and you have to be fast. And the winner is going to get an Amazon gift card at the end. We'll just throw your email address in the chat and we'll make sure you get it. All right. First question. Who's up? Remember at the end, poev.com slash F-I-N-E-D-U. What are ways to maintain and improve your credit? Keep a record of your credit card purchases. Only apply when you need it. Pay more than a minimum due or all the above. What are ways to maintain and improve your credit? And remember, it's not just being fast. It's also being accurate. And I don't think you can change your answer. Once you click one, you're stuck. Stuck with it. All right, a couple more seconds. Everyone locked in their answers. All right, three, two, one. The correct answer is all of the above. All right. I know I may have tricked you on a couple of them, but let's see who's in the lead. All right. Kate, we got a four way tie at the top. Caitlin Donovan, Elijah and guess 175. All right. Next question. Let's see who stays at the top. To avoid paying interest on your credit balance, you can pay the minimum due, pay a little extra, pay off the full balance. You have to pay no matter what. To avoid paying interest on your balance, you can do what? We need that Jeopardy music playing again. All right, everyone locked in. A couple of seconds left. Four, three, two, one. The correct answer is... Pay off the full balance each month. So half of you got it right. And we'll discuss that. All right. Caitlin's still at the top. And Elijah, right there at the top. A couple more questions. Let's see if they can stay there. Which of the following is not one of the three C's that lenders review for credit? Capacity, collateral, competency, or character. Which one is not one of the three C's that lenders review? And lenders are just the banks. They're the people that give you the money. All right. Lock in answers. A couple of seconds. Five, four, two. Correct answer is character. Competency is the correct 4%. Most of them answered the character. All right. Who's at the top? Okay. Caitlin, holding on. What is an excellent credit score? Five, six, eight, or 900. What is an excellent credit score? That could be a couple of them. All right. A few seconds left. Lock it in. All right. The correct answer on an excellent credit score. 800. I mean, 900 would be excellent, so that's not necessarily wrong, but the answer they're looking for is 800. Who's at the top of the leaderboard? All right, Caitlin and Elijah. Elijah's back up. Last question. Which of these are poor practices in managing credit? Making late payments, relying on someone else. exceeding the limit on your card or all the above? Which of these are poor practices in managing credit? All right, locked in, final answer. Correct answer is all the above. Correct. Ninety two percent. All right. Who is the winner today? Looks like we have a tie. Caitlin and Elijah, do me a favor. Go into the chat and put in your email address and we will make sure that you get your Amazon gift card. All right. Someone let me know if they can see the screen now. The PowerPoint. I can see it. All right, we're good. All right, so credit is an asset we've managed and monitored correctly. Opening and successfully managing financial products is the key to building and maintaining a good credit history. Debt is the sum total of all the things that you own. If you add up your student loan, your car, what you own the car, the outstanding amount you have in your mortgage, etc. When you add up all your stuff, that would be considered your debt. Credit is the ability to borrow money and repay the amount you borrow over time. That amount that you have on your credit debt is also added until your total debt amount. But credit is simply something that gives you the ability to buy things today and pay for it later. That simple. That's what credit is. A lot of times you may want to buy larger purchases and you just don't have the cash. So what credit does, it gives you the opportunity to make those purchases, but you do have to pay it back. And when you do, These banks are in the business of making money. The way they do that is by charging interest. These are the three C's when it comes to credit. It was one of the questions, capacity, character and collateral. Your capacity is your ability to pay your debts. This is what financial institutions look at. Like how long have you been at your job? How much do you make each month? And that is what determines the amount that looks like. issue here. That is what the amount that they look at when determining, can you, you have the capacity to take out the money. All right. Character, where credit is concerned, that is your reputation, your present and future ability to pay debts. How many late payments do you have? How many credit accounts do you have? Have you ever filed for bankruptcy? Things like that. And that's what they see when they pull your credit report. Collateral is an asset that's pledged to the creditor to secure that loan. It can be a car, it can be a home, it can be a bank account or other assets. Take a picture of this slide. These are some of the definitions you want to become very versed with. Things like secured credit, as I just mentioned, credit that's secured by a piece of collateral like a car, that would be considered a secured loan. A home loan, it's secured by the asset of the house, secured loan. Unsecured debt. Someone may have really good credit. They walk into a bank and say, hey, I need $10,000. They sign their name and they walk out with a $10,000 check. That's a signature loan. That would be considered unsecured debt. Credit lines are different lines that you can have, like a home equity line of credit. It has a maximum amount you can borrow. You can borrow anywhere from none of it to whatever that maximum amount allows. A lot of small businesses also can have lines of credit. Alternative credit are things that we see a lot of times we hear about alternative or non-traditional credit. Those are things like check cash in places, payday lenders, auto title loans, rental centers, pawn shops, and other predatory lenders who, for the most part, tend to only be in underserved communities. So be very careful with alternative means of credit because the way that they're regulated, they can literally charge you hundreds of percent. and interest to pay those things back. Installment credit, when you get a car loan and you may have a set amount of payments, 36 months, 48 months, your payment will be the same every month. That would be considered installment debt. And revolving credit is what we'll talk about with things like credit cards. So there are different pros and cons of credit. One of the pros, it's convenient. So instead of us walking around with a stack of cash in our pocket at all times, having access to credit can help when there is something that we need to do or get right away. It can also be there to cover emergencies. And I mean a real emergency. If you're driving down the street and you hit a pothole and you blow two tires and bend one of your rims, that would be an emergency. You actually have to get your car fixed so that you can get back to work, pay that debt off, and all your others. Some of you may be in college all over the country and you may live somewhere else. So you may get a phone call one day, knock on wood, it never happens, but you may get a phone call. Hey, one of your family members is sick. We need you to get home. Getting a plane ticket, that would be an emergency. An emergency is not the concert is Friday and I got to get a new outfit. All right. Also, when you have pros and cons of credit, it can help you build assets. I was watching a show not too long ago on CNBC. And they have mentioned that over the last decade, more millionaires have been created through capital gains than any other source. A capital gain is simply when you own something and it increases in value. Very simple definition. But having good credit can help you buy a home, which is one of the main sources for that to happen. OK, also, when you're responsible over time, if you're paying good on those debts, that will allow you the opportunity to gain additional credit in the future. Now, cons of credit, just like it's convenient, that is also a con. It's convenient. Sometimes we get so used to doing the swipe and we start thinking, you know what, I could pay that off later. Let me just go ahead and buy it now. But when we do that, you're using future money. It limits our ability to save and invest when we're spending money we haven't even made yet. And it also increases the cost of that item because we have to pay it back with interest. And by doing that, It can be a constant drain on financial resources, and we spend too much time trying to play catch up. Now, when we have good credit, you literally have peace of mind knowing that you can go to almost any financial institution, and they will probably grant you credit. Also, you can probably get some of the best and lowest interest rates available when you have good credit. That is important because like right now, you can buy a car at 0% financing at some of the manufacturers. Now, what that means for you is they are loaning you their money for free. Car dealers make money in volume. They want to move cars off of the lot. They're not as concerned with making money on that one loan. But you have to have really good credit in order to get that 0% financing. Now, when we have bad credit, sometimes we're not so fortunate as those that have good. And so bad credit will result in things like having higher interest rates on loans that we want. hire things like car insurance. And here's one of the big ones, employers. It can limit your employment opportunities. Guys, that is very important. You might be the most dynamic, best looking, most qualified person for that job, but you don't get it because of a messed up credit report. We want to make sure that our credit is an asset to us and not a liability. So make sure that when we're going to talk about how to fix it and go over all that in just a minute, make sure it's on your side. Because even things like car insurance premiums are based partly on your credit report. And it can be very difficult in obtaining credit at all if we mess up our credit. Take a picture of this screen. It's a debt tracker form. Some of you may be really good at Microsoft Excel and can create nice spreadsheets like this or you can print this one off. or go online and just Google debt tracker form, see if you can find one. But when working with your finances, you have to become your own accountants. You're going to have to keep track of where the money comes from and where it goes. One way to do that, especially on your larger purchases, is by using a form like this called the debt tracker. How it works is pretty simple. Let's say right now during the course of a semester, you needed to buy a new computer. You go to Best Buy, you buy a $1,000 computer. So on the amount that you owe, Colin, you put $1,000. As you make payments, that amount will decrease. Your payment amount, let's say you're paying $50 a month. I'm just giving an example. Your interest rate, you'll know that before you leave the store. The term of the loan, let's say it's 30 months. So you start at 30, 29, 28, et cetera. You can calculate how much of that $50 a month payment goes towards paying down to $1,000 you borrow and how much of that payment goes towards the interest, which you put there. At the end of the month or at the end of the column, you put the total cost. So we're paying $50 a month for 30 months. That's about $1,500. And we're paying $1,500 for a $1,000 computer. So that's how you're able to track what is the real cost of items that I buy. Now, there are a couple of what we like to call biggies in credit. That's what I call them. A couple biggies. Very sophisticated word. But debt-to-limit and debt-to-income ratios are the two. Let's get into those. Your debt-to-limit ratio, and I'll say it a hundred times before we're done here, debt-to-limit ratio, debt-to-limit ratio, do not forget that. That is the outstanding balance you have in regards to your limit. So let's say in this example, you have a credit card with a $1,000 limit. Let's say you charge $300 on there. So your debt-to-limit ratio would be 30%. I'm using 30% of my available credit. If I charge $450, it's 45%, right? What is my debt-to-limit ratio if I charge $700, okay? 70%, all right? I'm not trying to trick you, but here's the point. Even if you pay your credit card bill on time every month, you never miss a payment. If your debt-to-limit ratio goes over 50%, your credit score still goes down, okay? Is that fair? No, it's not. But it's one of the rules to the game. See, I don't know if any of you play spades or Uno or what your favorite game is, but don't you hate when you're playing and you do something and they yell, stop, you can't do that. That's not part of it. When you say, well, you didn't tell me the rules at the beginning. Guys, I am giving you the rules to the game. One of them now is you have to keep your debt to limit ratio under 50%. 30 is better. Now, let me be clear. That is your credit card. It's a $1,000 credit card. You can actually have $999 on that credit card. It's yours to use. But when you get ready to go make a major purchase like buying a car, that's when you need to make sure that your ratios are correct. Get it under 50%. 30 is better. Debt to limit ratio. The second biggie is your debt to income ratio. Again, if you want to go buy a car or do anything, take out a loan. You have to know what these ratios are before you walk into that building. What your debt to income ratio is, it's your total monthly obligations minus your rent and mortgage cannot exceed 20% of your net take home pay. All right. Your net pay is your income that you actually deposit in your account after deductions and taxes. All right. So in this example, let's say you bring home $2,500 a month. You have a student loan, a credit card, a car loan, another loan, that's $600. That's 24%. It's too much debt. Chances are you will not get approved for that loan. All right. So what do you do? You got one of two choices. You can reduce the debt, pay something off, or you can increase your income. Maybe you all have a part-time job. You can get a couple extra hours or figure something out. Or there are all kinds of ways to make money these days. Plenty of side hustles, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates. I could go on and on. However, it has to be verifiable income. When you go apply for these loans, they will ask you, bring in your last two paycheck stubs. OK, so it has to be income that they can verify. Not maybe I went and cut a couple of lawns and made some money or something like that. You have to have some type of pay stub to show them the income is verifiable. All right. So remember, debt to limit ratio, debt to income ratio. This is one of the new ones to the finance game. These are starting to pop up everywhere. In fact, I even got a message from my own bank saying that a purchase I made is now eligible for this or that. So these are something new called buy now, pay later short-term loans. They're very small installment loans, maybe a for-pay. The way they work, the customer usually makes an upfront payment. You make the first payment and then they break it up instead of, let's say, a hundred dollar item that you're buying. You pay twenty five today and then you can pay another twenty five over the next couple of pay periods. All right. So back in our day, we used to call it a layaway, but it's a new thing. They do not pull your credit. They usually don't also report to any type of credit agencies. But remember, if you miss payments, those will always show up on your credit report. So take a picture of this one. These are some of the companies that are now doing it. There are there are others that are out here. But like I said, it's just a short, quick thing. And if again, if you have a job and you get paid every two weeks, maybe you figure, OK, I can pay 25 every paycheck or something like that. All right. Let's talk about credit cards. Of course, these are the most common areas of credit. There are several different types of credit cards. The first one let's discuss is bank cards. All right. These are the ones issued by banks, saving and loan associations, credit unions, et cetera. These are your visas and master cards. Got it. But I always tell people, know who you do business with. We do not do business directly with visa and master card. Those are publicly traded companies. We can buy their stock on the stock market. But your credit card will say Wells Fargo, Bank of America, PNC, Capital One, Chase. I could go on and on. That is the bank that you are in business with. So understand who you're doing business with. Do a little bit of homework when you're looking at what type of different companies that I want to take a card out with. It helps to look at the... company itself. You can look at their financial strength and stability. You can look at the customer service history. You can look at reviews. You can do anything that you want to do. But the way bank cards work is if I go out and put $200 on my Visa or MasterCard, at the end of the month when I get my statement, I don't have to pay back the full $200. It will say minimum payment due. That may only be $10 or $20. Okay. That's the minimum amount you have to pay to make sure your account is in good standings. I can then let the other $180 or whatever I leave on there carry over month after month. That's why it's called revolving debt. But any amount that you leave on there is where the banks start charging you interest. And you all have heard many times the concept of don't get in credit card debt because it can get you in trouble. And that's because the interest rate, guys, they can charge you 20 to 30 percent on some of these credit cards. And we'll get into a little bit more on that in just a moment. But remember, the more you leave on it, the more interest that you will pay. Now, unlike your basic Visa and MasterCard or charge cards, these are travel entertainment cards. They generally don't have a limit, but they have to be paid at the end of the month. The Green American Express card, the traditional Amex card. That would be considered a charge card. It doesn't have a limit on it. I can go put out five or ten thousand on it this month. But at the end of the month, when you get that bill, you can't pay a piece of it. You have to pay the entire amount. So because you don't have that revolving option, you have to be careful. And that's why they're called charge cards. It can be easy if you don't have the amount of money you need to pay to get in trouble by using a car like that. So just be careful. I had a friend of mine, she bought a car on her Amex card years ago. And I'll give you one guess how long she had that credit card. Yeah, about 30 days. Another one is retail cards. These are the ones issued by department stores, different companies. I'll make it simple. You can't go to Best Buy, get a credit card and go shopping at Macy's. It's limited to the goods and services of the issuer of that credit card. Right now, we're starting to approach Christmas time too. So I promise you, when you all go to these stores, even now, there are several retailers who, before you check out, will ask you, how would you like to save 30% today on this purchase? Guess what they want you to do? Apply for a credit card. So your answer is no. You will have to say no multiple times because they get paid to open up different accounts, and I have to tell them no all the time. But remember, don't just get into the habit of opening these cards. Because they have a nice amount that you can save on that one purchase. All right. I do want you to write this one down or take a picture of it. Secured credit cards. All right. Secured credit cards are a great place for you to establish or reestablish credit. If somehow your credit gets messed up. The way that they work. You send the bank anywhere from $200 to $5,000. Let's say I send the bank 500 bucks. They then send me a credit card with a limit of 500 bucks. That's the amount that I sent in. That deposit is what secures the credit card. Now, some people are like, well, if I have the 500, why do I got to go through all that? Well, see, I travel quite a bit. As soon as I get off the airplane, it doesn't matter how much cash I have in my pocket. What does the car rental place want before they give me the keys? They want the plastic. OK. Even when I get to a hotel, even if I've already paid for the room in advance, I cannot get the hotel room key until I hand them a credit card. So to think that in 2022 and beyond, you can maneuver without credit, it's beginning to become a little bit unrealistic. But here's the bigger picture. A secured credit card works just like any other Visa or MasterCard. There's nothing on it that says it's secured or any of that. Works the same. As you're responsible with that card, it shows up on your credit report, the good payment history. Now, after a year, maybe two, the company may send you back that $500 and turn your secured credit card into an unsecured credit card, which is where you want to be to begin. So you can Google secure credit cards, take a look at the different ones that are out there. Some of you may have a relationship with your bank. Walk into your bank and just say, hey, how you doing? I'm a college student looking to build my credit. Do you all offer secure credit cards? And just see what they have out there. But be careful. There are some, I did see one that had a 91% interest rate. Yeah. Okay. You don't want that. All right. And affinity cards are cards issued only by a lending institution or another organization, like a charity or a college alumni association. Every time you make a purchase, a percentage will go back to the organization. Take a picture of this screen. These are all the different finance charges and how they're calculated. You're going to have to do a little bit of homework and research to get to the nitty gritty on each one. Your APR is just your annual rate of interest. Your periodic rate is a certain period of any period of time. It could be monthly. Annual fee. Look for credit cards that do not have an annual fee, if possible. There are many of them out there. But the type of credit card you use, guys, is going to be up to you. There is no one right answer for anybody. As far as they are, I see all the stuff. What's the best credit card or what's the best credit card for a college freshman? It's beyond that. I have two that I use a lot. One has very, very high points, like four times points on all the stuff. So I get very high points on things that I do every day. But the other one is I actually have one of the Southwest Airlines credit cards. It has a very high annual fee. But why do I have it? Because if I earn a certain amount of points in a year, next year I get a companion pass. So anywhere that I fly during that year, I can take someone with me for free. All right. So I promise you, even though I pay an annual fee. I'm going to use more than the cost of that fee on plane tickets next year. So just look and see what credit cards you're looking for. Just Google best rewards credit card, best travel credit card, and you'll see a list of different ones and you can get more information there. But then your grace period is the number of days you have to pay your bills before finance charges kick in, etc. But it's imperative that you read closely your terms and conditions on any loan agreement that you sign. whether it's student loans, promissory notes, mortgages. For credit cards, you have to read the truth and lending disclosure statement. That is required by federal law and it highlights the different rates, fees, and other terms. Take a picture of this slide. You all again have to know how to ask the right questions when you move through life and start looking at taking out different loans. You want to ask questions like what is the specific loan payment? What is the principal and the interest? As I gave you that example on the computer, yeah, my principal is the $1,000 that I borrowed, but I need to know what part of that payment goes towards principal and goes towards interest. Hopefully, it's 40 goes towards the 1,000 and 10 goes to the interest, not 10 to the 1,040 over the interest. Also, you want to know how is that payment applied? Does it go towards paying your principal first? Or does it pay the interest first? That is also very important. But I want you to focus on the one at the top right. Is there a prepayment penalty? Yes, there are companies now that will penalize you if you pay off the loan early. So you need to ask that question up front. Some of you, again, let's say you want to get a computer right now, but you know you will get enough money at Christmas time and gifts and all that since you can pay it off. So you spend $1,000 today. You say, I'll make three payments, October, November, December, and then I'll pay it off in January. But you need to ask, if I do that, will there be a penalty for me paying this loan off early? All right. And then under, you know, what are the consequences if I miss payments and under which state will disputes be settled? Is it the state that I live in or the state the company is headquartered in? Now, bad things can happen to good people. And I am definitely speaking from experience. I was the college student that applied for 50 credit cards my freshman year of college. Yes, I did that. I'm that dude, okay? And this is very important, so write this down. You ready? Don't do that. OK, yeah, that's all I need to say. But it's that simple, guys. No one sat me down and said, Marcus, don't do that. So basically, I destroyed my credit my freshman year of college because I didn't know anything about applying for credit. OK, I got a one thousand dollar Bank of America visa first semester and I was like, oh, this is all I have to do. I literally run across campus and grabbed every application I could find. I sent them all in, not knowing that I just destroyed my credit. So here's what we need to do. There at the bottom, take a picture of that one. Annualcreditreport.com is where you get all three credit reports free. Okay? That's where you get all three full reports free. Not the websites you see with the little jingles and stuff on television. They give you two reports and they're partial. You get all three full credit reports free at annualcreditreport.com because the first thing that you want to do is pull your credit to make sure the information is accurate. By the time I graduated college, I had paid everything off, but on my credit report, it still showed the negative information on there when it was not supposed to be on there. But I'll talk to you about it in just one second because when I graduated about six months after graduation, I took one of the worst credit reports you've ever seen and turned it into almost a perfect credit report. So we'll talk about that in a second. But the big three are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Those are the big three credit bureaus. Those are the three credit reports that you want to see. When you go to annualcreditreport.com, you can go back and look at your credit report for 30 days. You can print it off or you can save it to your hard drive. So I suggest you do one of those because after 30 days... You do not get to see it again. If you apply for credit and you're denied, then you can get another free credit report within 60 days. But by law, every one of us are entitled to one free credit report every 12 months. You do not get your credit score, your FICO score free with your credit report. Again, those websites I mentioned, they do give you a credit score, but it is a Vantage credit score. The problem with that is 99% of lenders use the FICO credit score, which is what we'll talk about. So you want to take a look at your credit report. Make sure the information is accurate. Again, on mine, the information was not accurate. So if it's not accurate, if you find out information on there is not correct, you can dispute the information. You can do it one of three ways. You can pick up the phone and call the 800 number. Good luck with that. You can write them a letter or you can simply go to their website. Yes. Go to the Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion website, and you can dispute the item right there on the website. They have 30 days to respond to your dispute. They have 30 days to update your credit report. If they don't, it automatically falls off your credit report. All right? Remember that, guys. Most everything on your credit takes place 30 days. My billing cycles, 30 days. I have a dispute. They have to respond in 30 days. 30 days. All right. So it kind of gives you that month timeframe, but any information that's on your credit report that's older than seven years has to come off. For those that try to file for bankruptcy to wipe out the debt that can stay on your credit report for up to 10 years. So just be conscious of that. And it's unfortunate because doing these workshops, I have had 18 year olds come up to me because they have already filed for bankruptcy guys. That is not the resort and you probably have other options. So if you're in that situation, before you do that, let's have a conversation with someone first. So what you want to do is take a look at the report and make sure that the information is accurate. If it is not, you can contact your lenders and make some type of arrangements to get that paid off. There's a big debate about a lot of this stuff. I've seen things called pay for delete. I've seen, you know. all kinds of different things, but I'm going to keep it simple. You can negotiate your debts if you're in that situation of where you don't pay a credit card. They eventually charge it off. They close the account. It shows up on your credit report as a charge off bad debt. They're not really expecting any money from you, but if you're not in the situation to pay that full 1,000 debt you may owe or whatever it is, don't send them $20 because you want to put something on it. You pick up the phone and you maybe negotiate a settlement for a lesser amount. You can say, OK, I guess I'll settle that debt in full for $300. They may come back and say, we can't do that, but we can do. $400. Either way, you saved yourself $600 to $700. You got the bad debt off of your credit report, but you have to then start building good credit. Now, the things that we're talking about is you may not want them to delete that item off of your credit report. Normally, if it's less than seven years, it'll stay on there. It will show settled for lesser amount on your credit report. And sometimes when you do those types of settlements, they can further reduce your credit score. But what we are going to talk about is how to build it back up. What I did was I made sure I paid off all the accounts, anything that I owed. I got a couple of secure credit cards and I started making on-time payments. Remember, that debt to limit ratio is a big one on your credit. I got the bad debt off. And then the payment history is another big one. I started making good payments and my credit score started to go back up. But whatever they agree with you, if they say, we'll take the 300, you can pay us 100 a month for the next three months. Any agreement you make, great. Get it in writing first. Establish arrangements you can afford and stick with them. Be consistent. Use any tax refunds that you might get. Don't go shopping, guys. Use those lump sums of money to pay off the debt. Your goal is to graduate college with a clean sheet of paper. You don't want to owe anybody anything if possible. OK. A lot of what we've been talking about is habits. What we want to do is start changing our habits, as I talked about in the beginning, from being spenders to being savers and investors. We want to leave our credit cards at home, pay off the balances each month if we can, pay off our debts. You can set a, if you have two credit cards, maybe you pay the minimum on one and you pay a bigger amount on another one until it's paid off. And then you switch it up. And then we want to comparison shop for any large items that we make. Let's limit our spending to needs, not wants. Remember that credit cards are loans. Keep the balances low. Remember I talked about 50%, 30 is better. Keep a record of your transactions and decline any credit limit increases. Now let's take a look at your credit score. The FICO score, Fair Isaac Corporation score. So as a rule of thumb, this is what lenders use to help determine how much credit they will grant you. Part of your credit score is based on the information on your credit report. Write this down, 700 and higher. I need that first number on all your credit scores to be a seven. The other ones we can negotiate, but let's get your first number 700 and higher. We get your credit to 700, then we work to get it to 750. We get it to 750, we get it to go up to 800, et cetera. All right. It says 850 is the highest, but that's not true. I have a friend of mine, she texts me her credit score every month. I'm not sure why, but she has like an 875. And I'm like, you know, what are you trying to prove? But 700 and higher, here's how we do it. 35% of your credit score is your payment history. That is the largest piece of the pie on your credit score. They want to see on-time payments from six to 24 months straight. On-time payments, do not miss one. All right. Be very cognizant of that payment history. And remember, even if it's just a minimal amount that counts, that is a good payment for this month. The debt to limit ratio I keep talking about is 30 percent of your credit score. Those two little things paying on time and keeping the debt under 50 or 50 percent make up 65 percent of your overall credit score. Fifteen percent is credit history. How long have you had credit? The fact I got my first credit card at 15 or 16, I'm sorry, when I worked at a department store, that actually helped me out because when I got to college, I had already built credit for a couple of years. 10% is those types of credit we talked about, secured or unsecured debt. Unsecured debt is looked at worse than secured debt because there is no collateral there to cover that loan. But then the last one, 10% is... Inquiries. So remember I said I applied for 50 credit cards my freshman year? Every time you apply for credit, all right, as a hard hit, I'll cover that in a second, every time you do that, it hurts your credit. Each inquiry reduces your score by about two points, and they stay on your credit report for two years. So the fact I applied it 50 times at once, I knocked 100 points off my credit report, guys, just like that, all right? I hope you wrote that down. Don't do that. But if you check your credit, you can check your credit report every day. That does not hurt your credit. That is what we call a soft hit. Also, when you open your mailbox and you see those stack of MasterCard, Visa solicitations in the mail offering you all these great rates, those are marketing pieces. They're soft hits. They do not hurt your credit either. The only time an inquiry hits your credit is when you authorize someone to pull your credit report. You have to sign something saying I authorize blah, Or if you apply online, there's always a box at the end that says authorization. That is the only time that they can hit your credit with a hard inquiry. OK, who uses your credit? Everybody. Mortgage lenders, banks, potential employers. We talked about car insurance companies, landlords. You all can't even get an apartment anymore without them pulling your credit. OK, we talked about how to improve the credit, remove, reduce the debt, pay it off instead of moving it around. Only apply for credit when we need it. What's on your credit report? Payment history, amounts owed, length of credit, types of credit, accounts and collections, charge off settlements and repossessed vehicles and lawsuits against you. What's not on your credit? Race, religion, medical information, driving a criminal record, political preference and banking information. So as I wrap up, guys, because our time is getting there, just make sure that our final steps, pull your credit report. Check it for the right errors. Try to fix that if possible. Check your credit score. Take a look at ways to reduce the debt, et cetera. Now, as I wrap up, I like to ask everybody out here, you're all students, right? Institutions of greater education and higher learning. So who's ever heard the phrase knowledge is power? Yeah, we all grew up hearing knowledge is power. Well, that's one of the biggest lies you've ever been taught in your life. Yep, I said it. Because think about this. If you have all the knowledge in the world, like you literally know everything about everything, but you don't use it, how powerful are you? So knowledge is not power. It's potential power. The application of knowledge is power. So what we need is for you all to go out, use this information, pull your credit report, start saving, start investing, start building your credit. so that in the future, you guys will be much more powerful than those that don't. All right. My time is up. I appreciate your time. And now I will turn it over to Rod Griffith. Marcus, thank you so much. And looking forward to our conversation continuing in the panel and want to welcome Marty Boyd as well to the panel. Marty is a student. SFE and PD student ambassadors and trainers. So a lot of knowledge there. By way of introduction, I'm Rod Griffin. I'm Senior Director of Education and Advocacy for Experian. So clearly passionate about this topic and what we're doing here. We have a number of questions and I want to give Marty Ara and Marcus a chance to answer them and share that knowledge. I think, Marcus, what you said about The application of knowledge being power is absolutely brilliant and not something that we hear very often. When you said knowledge isn't power, I kind of hesitated. Okay, where's he going to go with this? And it makes a ton of sense. You're absolutely right. So fantastic presentations. Martiara, do you want to introduce yourself? Hello, everyone. My name is Martiara Boyd. I am a junior accounting major at North Carolina A&T. And I am a student ambassador and a student assistant for the Society of Financial Education and Professional Development. Fantastic. So you have the knowledge and you're applying it. So she's powerful, Marcus. Here's we have a number of questions have come in. First question. And I think, Marcus, you kind of touched on this. It might get Mariara's thoughts, too. How many credit cards should you have? All right. I'll. jump on that for the sake of what creditors are looking for. First of all, you should have the amount that you're responsible enough to handle. That's the number one thing. If it's one, keep it at one. But what creditors are looking for as you build credit and go on to doing bigger things, they want three open lines of credit. That can be a car, a credit card in a house. It could be two credit cards in a car. It could be three credit cards, but they want... to see you get to three and eventually six, but start with three open lines of credit, pay it on time, debt to limit ratio under 50%. That's how we get our credit to 700. Excellent. Mardiard, do you have? A credit card or thought about how many you should have? I currently have four credit cards. One is just I use for regulars and then the rest is just to build my credit up. But I'm responsible with all of them and I can pay them off. I think that's the key. And Marcus, you said this too. It's not how many cards you have or how much credit you use, the credit you have. So great answers. So another question. Does every employer run your credit? And is it standard practice? No. If you get a job down the street at the fast food place, they're probably not going to run your credit. But when you go to these major corporations, which is where you are all headed. OK, when you start going to Wells Fargo's and the experience out there looking for careers, they do what's called a background check. Part of it is criminal. Part of it is stuff like your credit report. All right. And here's the thing. As I mentioned, it doesn't matter because the reality is, what does your credit report have to do with your ability to do the job? The answer is nothing. It's nothing. But it's a rule to the gang. Remember what I told you. We can't fight it. So understand it's a rule. And so when you go apply for these careers, make sure you check your credit and just make sure it's on your side. I can tell you that if you work for Experian and do education, they will check your credit report. Know that from experience. Another really good question. What should you do with a credit card that you don't ever use? Keep it on your credit report, because when you close accounts, that can also negatively affect your credit score. But be mindful that now credit card companies are going after people that do not use their credit cards. They are starting to close accounts. And they will even pay you to close that account. They will call you up and say, hey, we'll give you $300 to close this thing and get away from us. Because they're in the business of making money, which they make through interest. And if you're not using it, then they're not making any money and they don't like you. It's true. Marni, another question for you. You have four cards. How do you decide which ones you wanted and how do you use them? Do you have a plan for each of them? So actually, my mom has helped me out that she got my first one, which was the Discover one. And it was pretty it was nice. So she got that one. And then we signed up for a couple more. We signed up for Navy Federal City and also American Express. And I currently just switch between them. So like if I'm making a regular purchase that I know I can pay for, I'll switch between them and just use it and then just pay off that purchase. And that's in. You both touched on something important, and that's that activity in those accounts. And Mark's right. And I have a card. They just did that to me. Yeah, Marcus. I put something in the chat real quick, and I wanted to hit on it, talking about what to put on a credit card. And, guys, when I ask these questions at the universities, and when we're live, it's fun. I'm throwing candy out to the group and gift cards and all. But think about what you should put on a credit card. People give me answers like food, gas, things like that, et cetera. Think about this. How long does it take for your car to burn gas? Not long. How long does it take for your body to get rid of food after you eat? Don't answer that. Just think about it. So why would you pay interest for months and years on something your car burns in a couple of days and your body gets rid of in 24 hours? Do not put things that are of short use, consumable items on credit cards. Don't do it, unless you're going to make sure you pay it off when you get that bill. Great advice. So another question, how do we get a new card? They have one that they've been managing well since June. So getting some history there, when would you get a new card? And what might you look at when you're considering a new card? Again, it's up to you. It's everything that we talk about is up to the individual. I would need a heck of to know a heck of a lot more about you to give you that answer. But again. You get the second credit card when you're responsible enough to handle the second credit card. If you've done perfect on the first credit card and you want to build credit, then okay. But I always tell the college students, what is your goal? It's to graduate. That's your main focus, not the credit cards, et cetera. Again, if you're in a position to where you may have a job, have an allowance, have some income coming in to where you can pay the bills off, then okay, I won't resist as much. But which one? Again, I gave you some examples. Just Google. Think about some things that you may want to do in the future. Are you more interested in points? Are you interested in free items like hotels, travel and all that? Are you interested in building, getting cash back? Google different cards for different things that you may want to do. Another question, is it okay to have cards from different companies? Yes. I gave you my example. I have two. One is from one company and then I have the Southwest Airlines for a specific reason. Marty, you do as well, obviously. So kind of and you touched on Marcus in your presentation, the holidays, when you get those opportunities, I'll throw in a question of my own. If you get pre-approved offers, what should you do with them? And can they help you? Can they be a risk? And Marty, have you ever used them? No, I've never got a pre-approved offer. I use them. I usually, my mom usually just throws stuff away if it doesn't look good. Firewood. Yep. Get rid of it. Shredding. That is the, one of the easiest ways to tempt you because you're pre-approved. And sometimes the reality is guys, you're not approved, but they will put another hard hit on your credit. Now it's on there for two more years and you still didn't get the credit card. So don't, don't, don't do it. Yep. They'll, and that's something that's not known. You can, you might use them to your advantage, but when you do send it in, it's no longer just a soft inquiry market. You've now applied and they might change their mind or they might change the offer. So great advice. $10,000 credit card, your limit's 300 bucks. Yeah. Can we come to some of the other questions we received? Where should you begin when you're building a credit score? Where do you start? Did you want to tell them how you did it? Yeah, Marty, that'd be a great question. How did you get started? So when I got started, my mom put me on her credit to start. And then we got me my first credit card, which was a Discover credit card. And I would use it, and then we just paid off like every bill cycle. So as an authorized user? Yes. Yeah, that's a great way to start. And Marcus, any other tips in that regard? Well, he just threw out a nugget, guys. Write that down. Authorized user. If someone has a current credit card, a parent, et cetera, they can add you to their credit card as an authorized user. Their credit history, good or bad, then shows up on your credit report. Make sure it is a credit card they've never missed a payment on, the debt-to-limit ratio is right. They can add you to their credit card, and now all of their history. goes into your credit report. And a lot of times when you guys hear these trade line conversations and these companies out here wanting to build your credit and fix your credit, that's all they're doing. They're charging you $2,000 to $2,500. They're adding you on some of their cards. And in six months, they're kicking you off. All right. So be very careful. But that is a way to do it. My daughters, I've had them as authorized users since they were 12 years old. So here's an important question for you. everybody in this audience being students, how will federal student loans and graduate student loans affect your credit? If you pay them, they will help. If you don't, it will hurt. So, Marty, are you, and this is probably a personal question you don't have to answer, but are you, did you follow my plan and do student loans and spend 15 years? Well, you won't yet. You're not old enough to spend 15 years paying off. But you'll get there. But that was my plan in my family. We didn't I was the first person in college and student loans hit my credit report. And it took me a long time to pay off. Is that something you've thought about or considering as you're going to school? No. So my father actually took out loans for my first two years. And then this year I was able to get scholarship to cover. Fantastic. So the work as you and pay as you go plan is the hard one, but the best one. So another question, what determines a bad interest rate for a credit card? What number should they never go over if you're looking for interest rate? The lowest possible. Yeah, it's not a trick science out there. You want to look for the lowest, but you also want to be careful because a lot of credit cards, in fact, almost all of them now have what they call introductory rates. So you will have maybe a zero percent. interest rate for the next 18 months, 21 months or whatever. but then your rate jumps to 19%, et cetera. So that's what you want to look at. And again, depending on what your goals are, that may not be a bad way to start. When I bought my home, I furnished my entire house with a 0% interest for 18 month credit card. At the end of the 18 months, paid it off and I switch it over to something else. So that's just one way to do it. We have time for one last question. What are some unconventional methods to increase your credit score? The authorized user is about the most unconventional way that's out there. Yep. Secured cards. Somebody posted Fingerhut. That's a subprimal. My wife, that was her first card. She still has it. Goes back a long ways. I'll throw in just one kind of... hijack the panel, but there are at Experian, you can do something called Experian Boost today, which is a free permission-based service. You can add your cell phone payments, your utility payments, your Netflix payments to your credit report, and it's only positive information. So that's just within the last couple of years. And now in the last couple of weeks, if you're renting, you may be able to have your rent payments help build your credit too. So there's some new things just in the last week or two that have started to come online too. So check those things out. Marcus, Marty, Marty R., thank you so much for your knowledge and inspiration. And I will turn it back over to Betsy. Well, thank you so much. Hey, everybody, you have learned, hopefully, so much information. So check your ratios, pay your bills. One thing that I'll say that's, I think, probably the most critical is don't be afraid. If you have trouble with your payments, if you're falling behind, if you're struggling, The worst thing you could possibly do is ignore it and stop opening your bills. If you're having trouble, reach out and talk to your creditors so that you can get help. Anyways, that's the last thing I'll say. So, well, it's not the last thing I'll say because I have you hostage. I'm going to keep talking, but just for a tiny bit of time. So just a couple of reminders on the next couple of slides, you're going to see some QR codes. It's super important for us to know. how you think about these webinars. So if you get a chance to scan this QR code, look at that. I see a whole bunch of cameras coming up or not cameras, phones coming up. Everybody's taking pictures of this QR code so that you can give us feedback on today's webinar. So thank you so much for your feedback. Y'all, there was such great information today, amazing information that I think will be really helpful as you start building your credit record. whether it's from your student loans or from a credit card, whatever, pay back your debts. On the next slide, you're going to see the QR code for the entire webinar series. We hope that you have been able to take advantage of these. You'll see the replays on the TMCF YouTube channel, which will be very, very, very helpful to you. There is one more webinar in. this amazing Beyond College webinar series. And you'll see that on the next slide. It is in November, on November 3rd. And this one is super, super important, which is on social media. You guys, thankfully, I didn't grow up during the time of social media. If I did, I don't know, maybe I wouldn't work here. But social media smarts for today's digital world, really important things that you may not even think about things that are out there. Make sure that you are paying attention to what you put on social media. So you'll learn more on November 3rd at four o'clock. So you'll continue to see this information online on LinkedIn. Don't forget to link in with Dewey so that he can brag to me about how many more followers he has than me. But feel free to connect with me or any of the amazing people that you heard from today. There are tons of resources to stay connected. You'll see on the screen through Wells Fargo as the exclusive sponsor, the TFS scholarships, which you'll see online, the BN College webinar series. You'll see that for sure. There's also a dedicated team for anybody that has served in the military. Thank you so much for your service. So Wells Fargo has a great hiring program for that. And there are lots and lots of great jobs at Wells Fargo. So if you're interested, please reach out to the talent committee and community and look for great opportunities for internships and jobs. Anywho. We are at time and a little bit over time, but thank you so much for our amazing panel and our incredible speakers. There was really great information. Join us next month for the Social Media Smarts for Today's Digital World. And thank you very, very much for joining us for today's incredible webinar. Have a great day. Make good decisions and be smart and take care of yourself. This webinar is now concluded and great to see everybody. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody. Great info. Thanks a lot.