North Central Texas College - Flower Mound, Texas: It was great being a part of your semester!

Wow!  When that’s all you know to say, you know that it was a great day!

I was invited to North Central Texas College in Flower Mound, Texas as a guest speaker for the Learning Frameworks class today.   I must say that I had such a fun time!  Thanks again for instructor Harold Jackson (coach) for inviting me to stand in his stead.  The students in this class were engaging and encouraged to move forward with becoming more fiscally empowered!  

As I mentioned to the class, April is National Financial Literacy Month!  Everyone is encouraged to devote time and commitment to improving their personal knowledge, strategies and involvement in their personal and business finances.  The key objective here is to better enable us to build a secure future for ourselves and our families through the financial decisions that we make on a daily basis.

Ok class members... Here’s the summary of the class take-aways!

1. Begin using a spending plan!  Be purposeful in how you handle every penny that is entrusted to you.  A key way to do that is to prepare a plan and measure against the plan with the actuals for your income and spending.  If you’d like to use the spreadsheets that I used in the examples, request them from me.  They are free!
2. If you haven’t reviewed your credit report and credit score in the last 12 months, take an action to do that now!  Visit www.annualcreditreport.com to get your entitled credit reports from each of the three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion).  You are entitled to one free report from each bureau each year.  I’d advise you to get your credit score when requesting this credit report.  This score can included with your order for less an $10.
3. Know what is used to calculate your FICO credit score and adjust your actions as needed to improve your score.  Your FICO score is within the range of 300 to 850 and is made up of the following sources: 

Your FICO Score Explained

35% of your FICO score is based on your payment history.  On-time payments improve   your score.  Late payments means a lower score

30% of your FICO score is based on the amount of credit that you owe.  To improve your score, don’t charge your accounts to the limit.  Try to keep each credit account at no more than 30% charged.

15% of your FICO score is based on the length of time that you’ve had credit.  Don’t cancel the credit cards that you’ve had a long time.  Pay them off and hold them!  The older “account opened” dates improve your FICO score

10% of your FICO score is based on the types of credit that you have.  Try and maintain  a mortgage, revolving and installment account without blemishes and watch your score improve!

10% of your FICO score is based on credit inquiries.  Lenders requesting information on your credit history tend to lower your score as it creates questions of you potentially becoming overextended.  Plan when you will give companies permission to pull your credit information and try to do your “price shopping” activities within a 14 day time span to limit the number of inquiries on your report.

Again, thanks to Coach Jackson and the students of NCTC Learning Frameworks class for welcoming me.  Here’s to a more abundant financial life for each of us as a result of our paths crossing!

Carolyn