When is Your Credit Score Not Important?

Welcome to The Finance Gym Action Plan for a Better Life with Money video series.

My name is Stacey Powell and if you’re ready to not just know better but do better with your money, then you’ve come to the right place and today we’re going to be talking about your credit score.

Today’s video, it’s actually really just meant for the people who are so strangled by the debt in their life that it’s time to take some drastic measures.

Credit scores are important. They’re absolutely important. You not only need them to get good interest rates when you buy a home. Sometimes you need them when you’re going to be renting an apartment or taking a lease out for a commercial building space or for some people, when you’re trying to get a job or government clearance or something. Credit scores are important. What I’m going to talk about today is when credit scores aren’t important, when you become more important than your credit score.

So I’m going to do a little play today about a conversation that I had with a client once and I’ve had many similar conversations but here is the way it went.

She came in. She was like under water. She was drowning in credit card debt. She couldn’t pay them and she didn’t know what to do.

Her solution up to the point of coming to see me was take more credit card debt out to pay the credit cards because she could. She had this great credit score. It was like how – it was close to 800. It was really a good credit score and she was not going to give that thing up. So here’s the way this went.

“Well, what would it look like if you stopped paying your credit cards?”

“Oh my gosh. I couldn’t do that.”

“Why couldn’t you do that?”

“Well, because if I stopped paying my credit cards, then I couldn’t get more credit to pay my credit cards.”

“Well, what would happen if you stopped paying your credit cards?”

“My credit score.”

“What do you need your credit score for?”

“To get more credit.”

Back and forth and back and forth. I kid you not and it took some time to – for me to teach her, for her to step back and really realize that she was in a loop that there was no solution to.

In the end, her solution was to stop paying her credit cards for a while and like I said in the beginning, this is really for those of you that are really just in the most dire circumstances. I don’t take this lightly but for some people, this is the right solution. When you’re so strangled and worried about your credit score, that you’re making crazy decisions and digging yourself a bigger hole because you’re trying to keep that credit score alive, well, then it’s time to give your credit score up for a while. It will rebuild. I promise it will rebuild. It rebuilds after bankruptcy. It rebuilds after short sales. It rebuilds after periods of not paying your credit cards.

With integrity, you want to circle back and get all that stuff done and you want to rebuild it. But if you’re really to the point where you’re struggling to that level, I suggest you get my book and read it and I talk a lot more in detail about this. It’s another one of those things that you probably don’t want to do alone. I would love it if you would come join us over at Team Do Better. There’s a group of us that will support you on your mission. You can also sign up for our newsletter at TheFinanceGym.com or subscribe to our videos right here on YouTube. Thanks for watching!

5 Strategies to Stop Creating New Debt

Hi. Welcome to The Finance Gym Action Plan for a Better Life with Money. My name is Stacey Powell and if you’re ready to not just know better but do better, with your money, you’ve come to the right place.

In last week’s video, we talked about the four letter word “debt” and I promised over the next few weeks I was going to be showing everybody videos with my favorite tips about how to stop using debt. If you’re really ready to stop, I’m going to share with you my favorite few tips about how to do that.

The first one is very important. Cut up all your credit cards. Cut up your credit cards. Let people know that you borrowed money from in the past that you’re not going to do it anymore. Every single avenue you have, to take that easy path of borrowing money, stop. Make sure you just don’t even have access anymore because it’s too hard otherwise and I know maybe you don’t want to do it. I understand that. But if you’re really ready to make a lifetime change, you’ve got to do it.

If you absolutely refuse, then secondarily take them all and put them somewhere where it’s really hard to find, in a bank safety deposit account, with a friend that you know isn’t going to just hand them over to you because some important emergency happened, someone who’s going to talk through things with you, which is my next tip.

Find an accountability partner. Not your best friend who you commiserate with when you run out of money and blah, blah, blah and they make you feel better and they’re going to talk about their money problems and you talk – no, no, no. An accountability partner is somebody who you respect about how they handle their money. You know they aren’t going to judge you. You’re not going to feel judged. Somebody to mentor you and tell them what you’re trying to do. They will be thrilled for you. They will want to help. You have someone in your life like that. Think about who that person is and tell them, “I want to stop using debt. Will you be my accountability partner? Can I check in with you about how this is going?” It’s so much easier to do it with somebody by your side, cheering you on and rooting for you.

Then the last thing is when you think you absolutely have to use credit for some important emergency, I want you to stop and I want you to journal about the thing that you want to buy and I want you to list six reasons that maybe you wouldn’t have to do it, six ideas of things you could do other than using that credit card.

This is on page 109 if you’re following along the book and if the only way you can buy this book is with a credit card, don’t do that. Just go to the store at TheFinanceGym.com. It’s on there under the free downloads. Download that page. Every time you think you need to use a credit card, fill that out and if you make that commitment alone, I promise you you’re like not going to be using your credit card at least half the time because you’re not going to want to take the time to fill that sheet out.

That little thing right there will make a difference and an impact on your life and then my fourth tip is sleep on it. Sometimes our subconscious can come up with solutions that we can’t come up with.

So, if you’re ready, I’m here to support you. We have a group called Team Do Better over on Facebook. Come join us. We will be your accountability partner if you think you can’t find one. You can also sign up for our newsletter at TheFinanceGym.com. Subscribe to our videos right here on YouTube and if you’re ready to do this, do it with us. I would be thrilled to support you.

3 Ways You Can Stop the Debt Cycle

Hi. Welcome to The Finance Gym Action Plan for a Better Life with Money video series. My name is Stacey Powell, and if you’re ready to not just know better but do better with your money, you’ve come to the right place and today we’re going to talk about the four-letter word “debt”. Not a word that most people like.

There are a lot of you that are watching today that are really clear that you got a problem with debt. You’re living paycheck to paycheck. You struggle to pay your credit cards off. You’re using them most months. You get sick to your stomach when you see your interest charges.

Maybe you’re even using credit available from one card to pay off another. It can be really crazy making – and shameful and all that comes along with it. If that’s you, you know who you are but I know there are others of you out there that probably aren’t using credit to that level, but you still have that feeling in your stomach that you want to do something different.

You’re using it more than it feels in integrity for you and you would just rather not. I’m going to be talking to you today as well, and then there’s a few of you out there who you don’t have any credit card debt right now because you’ve paid it all off with your home refinance that you did last year, or you had a bankruptcy.

Your debt is gone, and it’s never coming back, right? Well, in my experience, the people that I’ve financially coached, when they’ve wiped the slate clean like that, it comes back slowly, but then not so slowly. So what I’m going to be doing over the next few videos is I’m going to be teaching you how to stop using credit cards, payday loans, loans from your friends and family, the equity that you work so hard to build up in your house. I’m going to teach you how to just stop. You know, and the thing is, is that when we use debt to pay for things, we make different decisions and if we’re using credit, then there’s some other problem in your life.

If you need to use credit, there’s something else you’re not doing, and it’s such an easy fix. We don’t notice it as much, right? Like oh, just you need a new alternator without that credit card. You think harder when you have to whip the money out of your savings account.

So if you’re using credit, it’s very likely that you’re not earning enough, you’re not saving enough, you’re spending money on things that really isn’t in a balanced spending plan for you and the minute you stop using credit is the minute when where your real problem lies becomes more clear. I want to help you find that. Make sure you tune into the next few videos where I’m going to be giving some of my very best tips about how to get out of debt.

As always, I would love to help you through this. Come on over to Facebook to our Team Do Better group or sign up for our newsletter at TheFinanceGym.com or sign up right here on YouTube to subscribe to our videos. Now take a big breath and get ready to stop using your credit cards.