Fumbling with my credit card, I once again felt the sting of ignorance biting into my finances. That's why I am pulling back the curtain on personal financial literacy, especially from the viewpoint of a single parent. In today's episode, I get candid about my past blunders with impulsive buys and how I've turned the ship around by arming myself with credit knowledge. You'll hear about the shock of finding errors on credit reports and navigate the repair process with me, using free resources and avoiding those pricey 'quick fixes'.
Ever bought a car with cash and later realized you missed out on building your credit history? I have, and it's one of the lessons I'll share in this journey from cash transactions to credit smarts. Planning for big expenses, like vacations, doesn't just ease the stress of last-minute funding; it also strategically positions you for a healthier financial future. And because we're not just planning for today but for our children's tomorrow, I'll discuss setting an example with savvy spending and the power of financial allies.
Follow us on Instagram!
@thegagispod
Email:
TheGagIsPod@gmail.com
Fumbling with my credit card, I once again felt the sting of ignorance biting into my finances. That's why I am pulling back the curtain on personal financial literacy, especially from the viewpoint of a single parent. In today's episode, I get candid about my past blunders with impulsive buys and how I've turned the ship around by arming myself with credit knowledge. You'll hear about the shock of finding errors on credit reports and navigate the repair process with me, using free resources and avoiding those pricey 'quick fixes'.
Ever bought a car with cash and later realized you missed out on building your credit history? I have, and it's one of the lessons I'll share in this journey from cash transactions to credit smarts. Planning for big expenses, like vacations, doesn't just ease the stress of last-minute funding; it also strategically positions you for a healthier financial future. And because we're not just planning for today but for our children's tomorrow, I'll discuss setting an example with savvy spending and the power of financial allies.
Follow us on Instagram!
@thegagispod
Email:
TheGagIsPod@gmail.com
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the gag is podcast. I am your girl, charlie shantae. Thank you for joining me on another week. It's a new episode, so you know what I mean. It's Friday it seemed like Friday take forever to get here like Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday, back to Monday, but we here, we gonna enjoy it. You know it's the weekend, find you something to do me. Let him relax, because my week, be it, be moving, it be moving. But thank you for joining me. I hope you're doing well.
Speaker 1:I want to bring back my review segment. So, if you have not already, please make sure that you are liking, subscribing, downloading, and also make sure that, wherever you're listening to this podcast or if you're watching on YouTube, please make sure that you are leaving a review, leaving a comment of some sorts, so that I can read it and shout you out on an upcoming episode. All right, so we all talk about something that a lot of people don't like to talk about, including myself. This is one of those things that if you knew better, you do better. Well, that's the understanding. We're gonna talk about finances today, so we can call this finance Friday, and I'm gonna be the first to say that I Would.
Speaker 1:I used to not be good with my finances, like not even gonna hold you. I Did not used to be good with my finances like Okay, it's money, I see stuff, I buy it. That's how that works, right? No, there is like a method to the madness. And with March being financial literacy month, I figure as a parent, and a single parent at that you know finances are always a big thing. You know, do we have enough money? You know, can we do this, can we do that? We gonna talk about it today and we gonna get into the nitty gritty. You know, I'm not a financial advisor, I'm not a financial planner, I'm not even a financial industry. So I'm what I'm talking about is just merely based off of me. So don't go and run it and say Charlie said I should do this, charlie said I should do that. No, charlie said you should do your own research because this is where it works for Charlie. Okay, I Ain't, I don't know where work for you, because I don't know your household, I don't know your finances. So the mother March is set aside for credit awareness, like credit education. It's like they set aside to. You know, help you get your finances order, take a look, make sure that you're doing what's best for you, make sure you are in a best financial shape.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know this was a thing. I mean me I just Okay, like I just peep at it that I I look at my credit score when they send me a little thing and I'm like, oh okay, cool, I Never dug Deep into you know, why is my credit score like this? What can I do to improve my credit score? Or you know, things is such. So when I was researching for this episode, I found a lot of of good information. I, your girl, just really really didn't know and we gonna dive into. We gonna dive into that here in a minute cuz, like I said, when you know better, you do better. And this is just one of those subjects that I didn't. I didn't know, I just didn't. I didn't, I didn't know, your girl didn't know. Hold on y'all my my stuff about fo. So long, let me. Let me get myself together, alright.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to credit education, one in five people find credit errors on, find errors on a credit report, and this is true for the longest time, like when I really really started, like got into credit reporting. Like, look at my credit report and understanding, I found like so many errors. I found out that one of the places on their listed under the job section was actually my mom's job. Like it wasn't even my job, like I had never worked at this place. So I was like, hey, I'm gonna need for y'all to fix this, and so I didn't know how to fix it. I didn't know how to go about doing it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot, a lot of information, a lot of information on the internet and, with today's time, there are a lot of credit gurus out there, and so, instead of this is, again, I am not a financial person. I am not a credit person. This is just me. I didn't feel that I needed to pay one of these financial gurus to help me fix my credit or get stuff removed off of my credit, like that's because, for one, I don't like people in my business. You know there's just clear cut and to what they telling you, I felt like it's easily accessible on the internet and it's free the things that you can do to fix your credit and to get errors off your credit. Read and it tells you how to do it. You can do it for free. I'm not about to pay nobody, because you, first of all, you don't know these people and you see their advertisements online on social media what have you? And they advertise. Oh, you know, I can get this wiped off your credit. You know who's your credit. You know, go do this whoo-doo-doo and that's. That's just not my style.
Speaker 1:I've always been a pretty private person, especially when it comes to my finances. I don't like people in my business in you know, the number one person in my business is the bank. They always in my business just like, and then they be putting little charts together like, hey, girl, this what you spend, this what you spend. I'm like, yeah, I need to mind your business. Y'all just there for addition and subtraction, like I don't need y'all telling me that I spent $120 at Starbucks this month. I don't need you with my business like that. Okay, okay, we understand, okay. So there's things out there for you to learn how to do kind of stuff on your own and when it kind of finances. I can tell myself old school, you can ask any whole lot. My best friend gonna hear this and she gonna be like girl, girl, girl. I'm an old school finance person.
Speaker 1:Growing up, I've always seen my mom and my grandma like I've never seen like hardcore budget and, like I told you before, when I grew up we was poor as hell. So I didn't know we were poor until I grew up, until I got older, I ain't know where I was, like, okay, we doing it. My grandmother and my mother always pay for things in cash or money orders, like they never really did like credit stuff, you know, like it was just cash and money or so. As, growing up, I always thought, hey, if I want something, I need cash and I have to save. So so that's why I got kind of good at savings and you know so I never was exposed to it properly. So I didn't know that when I was a teenager, when I turned 18, that I needed to started, started doing this, or when I worked I needed to do this. I was never exposed to that. You know, I was a child so, like they say, I stayed in a child's place. I never really asked or say hey, mom, you know how, how do you do this or how do you do that, you know so.
Speaker 1:You know, in my grandma she's, she's old school, she's older lady. So she, she grew up in a time where, there, you know, negroes wasn't getting credit, so you know she couldn't teach me. And in school they only teach you so much, like they give you the workbook when you elementary they got the quarter, the nickel dime and the pennies and the dollar bills and stuff. They teach you how to add it and subtract it, but it'll teach you how to manage it. And even in high school I never had like a money management class like they they do today.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to paying my bills now I want to say only only one of my bills is on automatic draft. Is it one, maybe two or automatic draft. The rest I go in there and manually pay. And even that's new because I used to Send, go get money orders and send off all my bills. For my mortgage, I pay that with the money order. For my car note, I pay with a money order. Everything I could I would pay it with a money order. Or I would like my phone bill, I would go to that location, pay like that. Like I, I never knew. Okay, I'm not gonna say I never knew about automatic draft, it's just not me. I didn't grow up knowing automatic draft.
Speaker 1:Country girl from Oklahoma, we, I know so even now, like everybody's like, why don't you put your stuff on automatic draft put on? And I'm like, hey, that's not really my thing, wouldn't be more convenient? Yes, absolutely. However and I don't even have it with me I have a bill book. So I have a book in every month, the month like so it's March. So in my bill book I already I already have April written down. I have written down what I need to pay when it's due, how much, if I got anything special coming up, that like if I have any trips or anything like that, like I already have that money like budgeted out in my budget book. So when I get paid I just know, okay, I got a look in my book. Okay, boom, boom, boom, boom. This, that's it.
Speaker 1:We have a place here called Am Scott. Am Scott got free money orders Rest my grandma. So I wish that there was a M Scott, because this lady was paying 49, 69 cent for money orders and Scott got him for the free 99. Boo. I Sure do go up to M Scott with all my little money in my little money. I'm loaded. I get from the bank because, yes, your girl still goes in the bank, my money and I. But I, okay, I needed money order for my lights, my water boom, just like that. And I come back and I staple If you, I think online, you ask Nikki, because Nick it and seeing the book, I take the money, or so, like a money order, you get the piece, the long piece, and then you have a little receipt piece on the side.
Speaker 1:I Take the little receipt piece, I write what the bill that I paid with that one was and then I staple it to the page and so all my little receipts is right there on the page. So if somebody say, oh, you didn't pay us or it wasn't the correct amount, or yes, I did, because I can always go back and track that money order, and I, like I said I know you're gonna be like girl, why you just gonna pay it online. Get a digital receipt that way. You know is there. I Don't want to do that. So, whatever man dates me, he got a note and I'm old school and I'm gonna pay these bills the old school way. So I Organized with my, I'm organized with my finances.
Speaker 1:You're gonna understand this bill book. Yeah, that's, that's just what that is Okay like. Don't, don't come for me. Okay, don't come for me. Matter of fact, I'm gonna put a poll up Do you still pay your bills with money orders or do you write checks or anything like that, or are you strictly online? Like, let me know? I know I'm old school, so, like I said, don't come for your girl. Okay, I'm gonna get better one day. Maybe when I get a man, he be like baby, I'll take care of the finances. Okay, so you need to write it down in the bill book, cuz mom need to know what's going on. I need to know.
Speaker 1:Up until I say, maybe eight years ago, I really learned about credit cards and the proper use of credit cards. I dated a guy who was a bank manager and you know we dated heavy and I was doing stuff. And he be like why do that? And I be like cuz, that's how I do stuff. And I be like oh, I'm about to go to the bank. And he be like go to the bank for what? I'm like to withdraw money to pay my bills. And he like, huh, I'm like, yeah, I'm like I go get cash and I pay my bills, like that. He like, nah, he's like you can't. Mm-hmm, he's that baby girl, you, you got to do better and I'm like that's the way that I was taught.
Speaker 1:Like buying a card, I I'm like, okay, I see this card that I want, so I know that I need to save up for it. And so I want to say, up until like six years ago, like the card that I want, I would save up my money and I would buy cash. I would like buy cash. I'm not talking about like a 7500 cash card, like I'm talking about like 20, 30 grand, like I'm paying cash for these cards. Because this is what I was exposed to I never knew. You go to the car dealership, you apply for credit, you get a monthly payment and you build your credit like that. I was never exposed to that. And so, like I said, up until like a few years ago, and so you know, now I got the card that I wanted, the cards that I want, and you know I make my payment on it. You know to try to build my credit because at my big age I don't have bad credit. I just don't have any like credit, because everything that I've ever done I've always done in cash. So people go.
Speaker 1:Well, how do you go on, like when you go on big trips at the end of the year. How do you do that? I'm such a forward thinker and such a forward planner that I'm so like this year's vacations that we have that I have planned out for the family, like those were established last year, so that I can know how much money I need to save. I already got next year is 2025 already got them, already got them to vacations planned out. Because I'm a forward thinker. I have that money saved to the side. So when it's time for that vacation to come, when I go on cruise ships, this time I'm gonna use my credit card.
Speaker 1:But previously I just use cash, because I'm one of those people that if I got a put no credit, I don't need it, but that's because I did not know how to properly use credit. Like you use it and then you pay it, I ain't gonna front. I've. I've got no trouble with my credit cards a few times because I use them. And then I'm like, okay, y'all say I got to pay this $17 a month, but I'm like I'm paying $17 a month, but I paid it $17, and then y'all add $32 worth of interest. Like this ain't right. And then I'm like, oh, like Nick was, like no, sis like this is how. This is how you do this. I'm like dang man. I'm like I never was really exposed to. I Was exposed to finances, but I wasn't exposed to newer finances Well, I guess you could call it newer finances, like credit credit cards and things like that.
Speaker 1:So shout out to my best friend I'm not gonna say Shout out to my best friend and thank you to my ex for exposing me and letting me know. You know, put me up on a little financial game. Appreciate that for you, sir. Hope you're doing well. Um, and then you know. So I'm working on it. I'll do better. Let's see it's so. I'm Almost how I gotta make. I gotta go make sure my bill booked together, cuz what I do is I'm gonna go get this money and I'm gonna send my bills off so that they'll make it in time by time April 1st rolling around I make sure that my bills have made it to where they need to make it to. So a couple of tips for Kind of credit education and stuff like that Um, sign up for credit monitoring.
Speaker 1:Like everybody named mama got credit monitoring whoever you bank with, if you have any credit cards, anything like that. Nine times out of ten. Those places offer free credit monitoring for you. If you want like more advanced stuff, like able to check your credit report with no dings or whatever, you can pay a little extra like monthly monitoring. But I have monitoring set up so that anytime anything happens on my credit report I'm notified. Whether somebody runs my credit, whether Somebody pulled my credit for something, anything like that, I'm always always get a notification, a list, no like hey, you know, xyz did xyz, or Even some credit monitoring, depending on the bank.
Speaker 1:I won't say what bank I use, but they kind of give me like a little thing. It's kind of like where do you want your credit score to be? What's your period of time that you know you want to get to this, you know, and it gives you tips on how to achieve that. It takes your credit report as a whole and it's like okay, this is what you need to do, or here's some suggestions, or you know. It kind of gives you tips and tricks on how to do that and I genuinely Appreciate them doing that.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I just don't like it when they be like you spent 120 dollars of Starbucks this month. I need you to mind my business. I go to work at 6 45, am you, girl, be sleepy, sleepy, okay, okay. So you know, make sure you do that. In every quarter. I try to sit down and I try to look at the, look at my bank account and kind of like, okay, you know, am I doing this? Or, you know, can I save here? Or you know, I try to look and make sure that I'm doing what's best for me and if I have a question I'll be like, hey, nick, like where you think about this, where you think about this, or how can I do this? No, get your girl together.
Speaker 1:And I think, as females sometimes we we often don't have a female friend who we can be that transparent with, who we can talk finances with and things like that, and we tend to suffer in silence. So I'm glad that I have her and I can bounce things off of my other best friend, tiffany. I can bounce things off of her as Well. So I'm, if you don't have that female friend in your life that you can go to and be like Girl, like can you, can you take a look at my finances and help me with my finances? Like finances is nothing to be embarrassed by, unless you just out here, just Just wild, and but it's good to have somebody to go to that can say, hey, you know, this is what I think you should do, or this is how you do this, or whatever. So now my credit cards is in good shape now. Good, good shape. Thanks, nick.
Speaker 1:Also, focus on making your payments on time. I try to make my payments either on time or early, just depending on what date it falls. And a little thing that I did not know until maybe a few years ago if your due date for something falls crazy, like falls on like the 19th of the month, you can always call an order man, ask for a due date change. A lot of places will do a one-time courtesy due date change to help it fall better in line with your pay periods or however you have your finances set up. I've done that a few times. I've done it with my cardinal, because I'm like who paying a bill on the 17th of the month, like that's just so odd, like so random, and so then there was a process that I had to do and I was able to change my date to something that was a little bit more convenient for me, something that would avoid help me avoid late charges because my pay period fell after that date. Like I said, that ensures because on time payments it does make a difference. It makes a huge entire difference. Because who want to lend you something or get you credit and you can't make your payments? Like on time, like no? And one thing that I've also done is I try to ensure that my kids I try to I want them to see me doing positive money things, so I make sure that I try to instill that in them.
Speaker 1:Marco Polo, he's pretty decent, he's pretty good. But that little one, y'all that little one, he like his mama back in the day, her mama, when her mama was little, she used to get money and she used to just let it burn a hole in her pocket Like Lorenzo, get money. My boy is rich. He'd be like can we eat? Can we eat Chick-fil-A today? It's so mean, I'll pay today, you don't worry about it. I'm like you balling like that. I'm like baby, go ahead and keep your money. We not poor baby Mama can afford Chick-fil-A. I like the gesture he gets his money. He just always be like mom, let's go Chick-fil-A. Mom, let's go get Boba. Mom, I want to get some leche tea.
Speaker 1:Boy say you love money, okay Because. Say you love coins. Because I be trying to tell him we got stuff to do coming up. You know we got these trips and stuff. I pay for the trip. I'm not finna, finance your souvenirs too. You better be saving the coins that you got.
Speaker 1:So I try to introduce finances to my kids as much as I know. So the little sprinkler tidbits that I do know, I do try to share that with them. I still save money in a jar. I'm gonna take it to the coin change thing and people look at me so crazy when I go somewhere and I pay with cash. Like I'm gonna be using my cards like rarely I use my debit card at the store but I use cash. Cash is everything. Because I feel like I have better control over my spending when I use cash versus credit. Because with a card you can just go and you can just tap and tap, tap, tap, tap, tap and you don't really look at your account and you just tapping like a tap dancer. So when I have cash I'm able to keep up with that, I'm able to control that. I know what's going out, like I can physically see it. So I'm one of those people that if you can physically see the money going out, okay, I spent $5.00, all right, cool, boom. You know I'm tracking. I'm aware you know that's just me.
Speaker 1:I probably won't be like this forever. I don't know. I think it would have to be like a desperate act for me to like they would have to abolish money, probably for me not to go to a bank, uh, into pay my bills with credit cards or debit cards instead of cash. I think that they would have to abolish. They would have to abolish money, physical money, for me to catch on to Not using cash. I know old-school, would it be organized? All right, so I further. You can't make this up. You've heard in previous episodes About this. If you have not, you don't have to go back and let's say episodes, because I don't even know what episode I talked about this on. But when it comes to money, be careful and do your due diligence with people, because scamming is at all time high and Two years ago there's been like two CCOVID with 2020.
Speaker 1:So about three years ago I, like I said I always Whatever I want, I always save up for, and so after I moved to Florida, I saved up money for me and the kids. You know, I was like, you know I want to make. We got this nice house and I want to make it kind of Inclusive restore, so that red resort style, so that we never, you know, have to really leave the house, you know. So I saved up money To get a pool and I was like we going all out, I let the kids pick the tile. I let the kids like I gave them creative control because I knew that I had saved this money and I knew that and I saved on the high end. I didn't even save on the low end, I saved on the high end of the pool. So I'm like, whatever kind of tile they pick out, whatever kind of decor they pick out, or however they do, this pool, we're gonna be good.
Speaker 1:Needless to say, someone got money hungry and I was scammed out of a lot of money, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of money. I was scammed out of about 20, over $20,000, and my jidus is money that I had saved up. I haven't saved in years for. So I got scammed out is, yeah, about $20,000. So I say this, the same, and I Say this, that to say this had I Gotten the pool on credit and Just made the payments toward the pools, put toward the pool, then I would still have $20,000 in my pocket because the finance company a lot of the finance companies For gave that amount because it was a scam. So a lot of people ended up. You know, being able to walk away, you know just would hurt feelings, while other of us will walk away with empty pockets. So, yeah, do your due diligence and you know, credit ain't scary, it's. It's not scary, it's a little once you start understanding it, how to use it, how to do things. It's very cool.
Speaker 1:And Now I'm on the road like I got it in my mind. I Got where I want my finances to be and where I want my money to be, like at XYZ milestone. Alright, and for our last segment, my favorite segment, because this is like creative artistic abilities here, you know my song lyric of the week and I always try to get a song that coincides with what we talked about for the week. So I feel like, since we talking about money, there is no better song than Odb baby, I got your money. I Feel like that is the perfect song for this week's episode. All right, with the end of the road, y'all, we have come to the end of the road. We didn't talked about this money. We didn't talk about how to use it correctly and some of the tips and tricks that I have used when it comes to money and yeah, so if you have not already, like I said, wherever you listen to this Podcast I forgot my words Wherever you listen to this podcast, that please make sure you go and leave a review.
Speaker 1:If not leaving a review, just go ahead and give me that five stars. Let me know that you're enjoying this. Make sure you like, share and subscribe on the YouTube page. Wherever you listen to this podcast, that make sure that you are downloading and you are following me on that app. That way, every time a new episode is released, you are one of the first to know, and then it automatically downloads for you. Don't be ashamed to download. That way, you can share it with somebody. You can go and reference it. All right, y'all, until next time. I am your girl, charlie Chante. Thank you for joining me. Bye, guys.