Mastering Your Credit: Taking Control of Your Financial Future
Want to buy a house? Finance a car? Get a credit card? Start a business?
That three-digit number called your credit score can make a BIG difference.
But what happens when your credit isn't where you want it to be? Where do you even begin if you don't understand what's on your credit report—or how the credit system works?
That was the conversation on Episode 7 of Fierce & Fearless with Scoop Nemeth, when I sat down with Marlena Rose Vigil of Cariñosa Financial Education/Solutions to talk about credit, money and financial education.
One thing became clear during our conversation: better credit isn't about some magic overnight fix. It's about understanding the system and learning how to work with it. Marlena emphasized that improving credit can take time and consistency.
Start With Your Credit Report
Before worrying about raising your score, you need to know what is actually being reported about you.
During the show, Marlena recommended starting by reviewing your credit reports and looking carefully at the information being reported by Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. She also discussed the importance of being proactive when information on a credit report is inaccurate or hasn't been properly updated.
And that brings us to an important distinction: your credit report and your credit score aren't the same thing.
Your credit report contains information about your credit history. Your credit score is calculated from information associated with that history and is used by lenders and others when making certain financial decisions.
Understanding both gives you a much better starting point than simply staring at a number and wondering how to make it go up.
Building Positive Credit Takes Time
Everybody wants the magic answer:
“How do I raise my credit score?”
But one of the strongest messages from our conversation was that rebuilding credit isn't an instant process. If your credit history took years to develop, changing it may take time too.
Marlena shared an example of someone she had worked with who, after consistently working on his credit, reached a FICO score of 839 and was able to refinance a truck from an 8.7% interest rate to 4.2%, which she said saved him more than $200 per month.
That's where credit stops being just some number on a screen.
Better credit can translate into real money.
What About Entrepreneurs?
This conversation especially matters to people trying to start or grow a small business.
During the episode, we talked about the difference between personal credit and business credit, why entrepreneurs should understand both, and why keeping business and personal finances separate matters.
And I asked the question plenty of beginning entrepreneurs can probably relate to:
What if you're starting your first business and don't have a shitload of money or perfect credit?
Marlena's answer came right back to the fundamentals: understand what's on your credit report, identify the problems and learn how the system works.
You don't have to know everything on Day One.
But you do need to start learning.
Financial Education Is Power
Maybe that's the biggest takeaway from Episode 7.
Credit affects far more than whether somebody approves you for a credit card. During our conversation, Marlena described credit as something that increasingly touches everyday life, while emphasizing straightforward financial education that people can actually understand.
That's exactly the kind of conversation I want Fierce & Fearless to create.
Not somebody talking at you.
Not somebody throwing around financial jargon and expecting you to understand it.
A conversation where we can ask questions, challenge what we don't understand, and walk away knowing a little more than we did before.
As I said at the end of the episode, Marlena gave us ideas for addressing negative credit, building positive credit and beginning to take control of our financial future.
That's the Scoop. WATCH EPISODE 7 — MASTERING YOUR CREDIT
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