May 13, 2025 • 50 mins
In this enlightening episode of About That Wallet, host Anthony Weaver is joined by Christina Roman, a credit expert and passionate advocate for financial literacy for Experian. Together, they explore the journey of overcoming financial hurdles, tackling budgeting woes, and building a stellar credit score.
Christina shares her personal story of transforming her credit score from the 400s to the 800s, revealing the lessons learned from her past mistakes and the impactful strategies she adopted along the way. With her experience working at one of the top credit bureaus, she provides invaluable insights into the intricacies of credit scores, the importance of budgeting, and how to avoid common financial pitfalls.
This episode is packed with practical advice for those in the Sandwich Generation, focusing on how to manage finances effectively while juggling multiple responsibilities. Christina emphasizes the significance of intentional spending, understanding credit utilization, and the power of open conversations about money within families.
💬 Question of the Day:
What steps are you taking to improve your financial literacy and credit score? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
🔗 Connect with Christina Roman:
Website: experian.com
Twitter: @Teena_Laro
LinkedIn: Christina Roman
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=|| 📚 Chapters ||=
(00:00) Welcome and Introduction
(02:30) Christina's Journey to Rebuilding Credit
(10:15) Understanding Credit Scores and Their Impact
(18:00) Budgeting Strategies for Financial Success
(25:45) Overcoming Impulse Spending
(32:30) Teaching Financial Literacy to Children
(40:00) The Importance of Family Conversations about Money
(48:15) Final Thoughts and Resources
(55:00) Where to Connect with Christina
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⚠️ DISCLAIMER:
This content is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Always do your own research and consult a licensed financial professional when needed.
#AboutThatWallet #CreditScore #FinancialLiteracy #Budgeting #SandwichGeneration #MoneyManagement
Episode 295
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Christina Roman (00:00):
And then I started to see, okay, life's getting a little
(00:03):
bit easier. Even, just, even knowing that I
still carried that debt, but knowing that I was tackling it
felt like things were, were lifting off my shoulder. I felt
lighter on my toes. I was like, okay, this, this feels
good. Now how do I make it even better? And from
there I just started to work on my credit. And
now today I hit the 800s, which is
incredible. I'm like, really proud of myself for doing
(00:25):
that.
>> Anthony (00:29):
Welcome back everybody to another exciting
with about that water podcast where we help
the Sadwich generation build strong financial habits so that
they can talk about money, spend money
and enjoy their money with confidence. And
one of the things that I'm, um, having for this particular
episode is talking about how to
(00:49):
overcome your budgeting willoes,
build up your credit and even talk about some of those
money mistakes that you've been dealing with and how to overcome
those. And one of the best people to actually
have to talk about this is
Christina Roman. How you doing today,
Christina?
>> Christina Roman (01:07):
I'm doing well, thank you. Thank you so much for having
me. I'm excited to be here to share knowledge and
to talk about financial mistakes. That's one of the things I really love
to talk about because I have made my fair share. I will say
that.
>> Anthony (01:20):
Haven't we all?
Uh, and you're coming from like, one of the,
like you're currently working at one of the, the
top three biggest
ownown companies, which is
experience. You know, what is the experience
like being there?
>> Christina Roman (01:38):
Being anian has been
incredible. It's an incredible company to work out. It's a company that's
changed my life for the better. Um, um, when
I first started working here in
2015, I
was on a credit rebuilding journey. I started as
a social media specialist for them.
And I remember when I was in the hiring
(02:00):
process. So how it worked is one of my friends at the company
that I was previously working at ended up going and working in
itian and so every once in a while she
would send jobs over our way. And um,
she said, hey, Christine, I think this would be a great fit for you because I was
doing social media at the company that we worked at before
and, uh, I went through the process
(02:20):
and um, my boss at the time, Mike
Delgado, or the one that I interviewed with, it
was incredible. Just coming into this big
corporation, first of all, you turn, uh, into
exper Experience. It's three huge buildings and I
came from very small, uh,
businesses previously. So it was like we were working in a
warehouse. We were working in a back office
(02:42):
somewhere. And then for this experience, I
pulled into this huge campus with
three buildings. And it was intimidating. I was like, I don't know
if I'm ready for this kind of a job.
For corporate culture, I don't know what that's like. But
Mike Delgado, the first question he asked
me was, where are you from?
(03:02):
And I said, oh, I'm from Long Beach, California. Uh,
and he's like, oh, they have a great food scene. And then we just started
talking about lobster rolls. We started talking about
our favorite restaurants. And that put
me so at ease for the job interview. And
that kind of was the telltale sign to how
the company is in general.
(03:23):
It's such, um, um, I don't know. The
industry itself is an intense industry, right? The
credit industry, data. Um, um.
But the, the business itself, it doesn't feel that
way. It feels like
just you're with your family. I don't know if
that sounds cliche to say, but it was just so
easy going. Everybody that I interviewed with was very down to
(03:45):
earth. Um, we clicked really
quickly and I just felt like,
this is a place that I want to be. This is where I meant to
be. And, um, so
when I was going through the interview process, I really
wanted the job. I, I had interviewed
with everybody, everybody I really enjoyed interviewing with.
(04:05):
And I really wanted that job. I prayed
for that job. And when I was talking to the HR
person in the final step, I said, look, I know
you're a credit bureau. My history with credit
is not that great, and I hope it's not going
to impact me. I've been on a rebuilding journey, I
promise. Like, I'm, um, getting myself
(04:25):
together. And she was like, it's fine,
relaxed. You're gonna be okay.
And so I was just hoping that that was not going
to impact me. But once I came here, and I know this is
a long winded story, and I apologize. I'm so
passionate about this company that I work for
because, um, Mike Delgado, when I started working
for him, he said, okay, Christina, our goal is
(04:48):
to, to do credit education on social
media. And I said, well, I love
social media. Let me tell you what I don't know a lot about, and that's
credit. And so I was very honest. I said, look, I made
every mistake with credit. I ruined my Credit. In my 20s,
I've been rebuilding, but it's kind of. I've been
piecing things together from different things that I've read
online. And he's like, that's totally fine.
(05:10):
I'm going to give you all the resources we have. He sent
me article after article after article.
He connected me to the team that I'm currently on now,
where I attended a, uh, training session with them. I
worked with, I read over every article that they put together.
I worked with them on campaigns. And then I started
to learn so much about credit that it started to
(05:31):
improve my financial life. That's why I Saidian
has been, has been the best place that I've
worked at, and it's, it's honestly changed my life for the better
in so many ways. Not just from
the, the benefits that they offer, the
corporate culture is incredible, but also,
um, the tools that they offer their credit
(05:51):
monitoring, the tools that they've made available to
help consumers, to boost their credit. Um, it's
all innovated over the past.
Let's see, what is this? Almost 10 years, the company
has grown in strides in the steps that they've taken to help
consumers, and they've helped me, and I, in turn, get to
turn around and join these amazing podcasts to help other
(06:12):
people.
>> Anthony (06:13):
And because, you know, you say you talked about credit
was bad, like, how bad was it?
>> Christina Roman (06:19):
Oh, it was bad. It was,
it was, um. Um. So
when I was in college, I
made the mistake of opening a credit card
and not really understanding
how credit worked. So I didn't know what
an interest rate was. I didn't know,
(06:39):
um, like, I didn't know
that missing a payment was going to impact me for seven years. I thought, oh,
you missed a payment, you catch up. Not a big deal, you
know. But, um, I. So what happened is
I opened a credit card and they said, you have a
0% interest for 12 months. Me not knowing how interest
rates worked at the time, I thought that meant I didn't have
(06:59):
to pay for 12 months. So then I started
getting bills, and I was like, why am I
getting a bill? I don't even OE for 12 months. But, okay, here's a
track of everything that I owe and some. And then, I'll
be honest with you, sometimes I didn't even look at the bill. I was like, oh, they're sending me
another one of those bills. Like, I don't know them,
though. And then, um, it
got bad. I started getting collection
(07:22):
calls. Um, one of
the, the women was through
my, my bank on campus. And
I remember her by name. Her name was Simone.
And, um, she was a big impact in my
life. She's the one that talked to me
like a parent almost, and said, okay, Christina,
you clearly don't understand how credit works. Because she would tell me,
(07:44):
hey, you need to pay. And I'd say, I don't have the money to pay. And
she said, well, we're going to report you to the bureau's. And I said, well, I don't know what that even
means. That. What do you mean you're going to report me to the bureau's? And she's
like, okay, you really don't understand how this
works, right? And I said, no. So she actually would take the
time to talk to me, and then, uh,
she would call me again when I missed payments, and she'd be like,
christina Simone again. You know,
(08:07):
let's talk. What are we going toa do? How are we going toa get you caught
up? And so she was the one that really made me
curious about, okay, how is this really
impacting me? So I ruined
my credit. I would say I think I was in the
400s at one point. And
what happened was, uh. And if you're not familiar with the
(08:27):
credit range, credit range goes from 300 to
850. Um, 850 being the highest,
850 being, you know, your goal, or,
you know, upper 700 to 8 hundreds is your goal.
Right. Um, I had
a car that was constantly breaking down,
and so this car was eating through all my money, and
I decided I needed to go and get a new car.
(08:49):
Um, again,
being completely naive to how credit worked. I went to the
lot and I found this car that I liked.
It was affordable, it wasn't anything fancy. It
was like, um, the cheapest, uh, the cheapest
version that I could find. Um, low
mileage, whatever. And they ran my
credit, and my mom was with me, and she
(09:12):
had always told me, don't get a credit card. Credit cards are
bad. She didn't know my financial situation.
And the person was like, ooh,
okay, so we run your
credit and
you're go going toa need a coigner. And I
was like, okay. He said, u, um, you're
gonna need a cosigner or you're goingna need to try to accept it a
(09:34):
loan at a 19% interest rate.
And I was like, oh, I don't even know what that means, but
okay, 19%. And my mom's jaw
was on the floor. She was just like,
she's like, we're gonna walk away right now
and we're gonna figure this out. And I was like,
what's wrong? Like, I didn't understand still at
(09:54):
the time how high that truly was
for a car. Um, so
she was really mad at, she didn't talk to me the whole way home
and I was just like, what happened? I don't
understand this. Well, a few
days later I went to my parents house just to pop in
into visit and the minute I walked in my
(10:14):
door, the door, my dad just
started screaming at me about like
what are you doing with your life? How could you be so
financially irresponsible? U
um, and I just,
I got completely attacked from my parents
about what I had done. It was, it was
a tough situation to be in. It was the very eye
(10:36):
opening situation to be in. They really explained.
No, don't. I don't even say that. They didn't explain anything to me.
They just yelled at. And then I went home
and I started to say okay, clearly I've
done something wrong and I need to figure
out how to get out of this. So at the
time I was dating my now husband and he's
very financially responsible. U
(11:00):
and we talked about everything that I was
going through and he kind of knew but I
didn't really want to tell him too much. But
once this happened I kind of laid it all out
and he's like, okay, I'm gonna co sign
a car for you. And I was just like what
he said? I he's like, he told me, I see
(11:21):
a future with you. I'm go going to co sign on a car for
you. But you need to know that
if you do not make your payments, it's going
to impact my credit. He's like, you've already ruined
your credit. I need to help you rebuild. So if
you miss uh, a payment, you're going to impact me
negatively. And that
(11:42):
also, that put a lot of pressure on me. So I was like,
okay, I'm going toa get my bills in order. I'm
gonna learn how to, how to manage my
budget properly. So that way I make sure that I make those
payments. And I did, I did not miss a single payment
on that car loan. And that kind of started
that snowball. Effective okay, I'm doing this
right now. Let me bring my credit down. And so I
(12:04):
started my credit debt down. So I started to look up
ways to reduce credit debt and so I did,
you know, the calculators, interest rate calculators, how much can I
realistically afford to pay? And we just started
doing that and I just started chipping away at my debt
and then I started to see, okay,
life's getting a little bit easier even just
(12:25):
even knowing that I still carried that debt but knowing That I was
tackling.
It felt like things were, were lifting off
my shoulder. I felt lighter on my toes. I was like, okay,
this, this feels good. Now how do I make it even
better? And from there I just started to work on
my credit. And now today I hit the eight
hundreds which is incredible. I'm like really proud of myself
(12:46):
for doing that from knowing that I got that low,
but also knowing, okay, now I'm in the eight hundreds,
this is possible. And that's kind of what I try to
share with consumers when we talk about credit. Doesn't matter
where you are, you can take the steps to improve
it. Um, and it's important that you do
that.
>> Anthony (13:04):
You know, you hit the credit bur I got to ask these questions
uh, because everybody going to have them. Um, I
think this is beyond you now I guess at this
point. But uh, u
obviously what is the credit like the breakdown
of a credit score, if you don't mind going through that
and then what ways
(13:25):
that you've seen has been the best for us. Like a
budgeting strategy has been good.
>> Christina Roman (13:31):
Okay, so u
credit scores. First of all, it's
important to know that there are so many credit scores
in motion. You know, um, you have
your a lot of scoring models that are commonly
known include FICO and Vantage score and they
weigh information differently. They're the
(13:52):
algorithms that calculate your credit scores. They are
proprietary to them, so they're not the bureau's credit
scores. And I think it's important to kind of separate
credit scoring models from the credit
bureaus. So the bureaus are responsible for
managing and maintaining your credit report.
So um, how the cycle works, you open
up a line of credit, you make your payments,
(14:14):
the lender updates their records, they report that information
to the bureaus who then store that information
in your credit report or your credit history.
Then when you go to open credit in the future, we share
that information with the lender. Now the
lender then may choose to run it through a
credit scoring algorithm to help them
quickly analyze your credit report. So what that does that
(14:37):
algorithm looks at your report and it assigns a three
digit number, typically between 300 to 850.
That's your credit score. Um, and then from there
the lender will use that along with a variety of
other factors, including your income, your stability,
to determine if you qualify for that loan. Right. So
what are the factors that make up your credit score?
(14:58):
Your payment history is a number one factor
impacting your credit score. So it's imperative that you make your payments
on time. I always tell People set up,
um, automatic payments if you can,
or have that calendar in your phone that
you plug everything in and then you, you know, make your payments
on the day. I tend to like to be more involved
(15:18):
in my finances. So I will go in and make that
payment because I feel like that makes it click for me. I'm like,
okay, great, I made that payment. We're good.
Um, um, also, because sometimes you just want to make
more, you want to pay more if you can. So that's
another great way to, you know, reduce how much
you owe on a loan that much faster if you can
make extra payments. Great.
(15:40):
The second factor that impacts your credit, the second biggest
factor impacting your credit is your credit utilization. So how
much of your available credit are you using? Um,
each month? Now, this is particular to your credit cards.
So you have a set credit limit and
you get to charge, you get to determine how much you're going to charge
each month and how much you're going to pay off. Are you
(16:00):
carrying debt month to month? That gets reported to the
credit bureaus. How much of your available credit are
you using? So if you're using more
than 30% of your available credit,
then you'll start to see a little bit of a hit to
your credit score. A lot of people say
30% is that number that you should aim for. We
actually, we tell people, if you can pay it off, pay it off because you
(16:23):
don't want to carry debt over because you're going to pay interest
on that, those amounts that you're carrying over, right? So who
wants to pay extra on money that they're carrying over?
Additionally, if you can't pay it off in full, if you can keep
that usage at, uh, 10% or lower, that would
be even more beneficial to your credit score.
So your payment history and your credit utilization
(16:43):
to this biggest factors, typically that's about
65% of your credit score. Then you have
your credit mix. So how, how many
different types of accounts do you have? Do you have credit cards? Do
you have loans? How are you managing both?
Um, so that gets factored in your
age of your credit. So how long have you been
(17:04):
using credit that gets factored in? Um, a lot of
people, you know, if they just get started using credit, they want to see that
800 credit score right away. Remember, your,
your credit, um, report is
your history of your credit usage. So credit takes time to
build. Give yourself that time.
And then, uh, the last factor is new
credit. So are you applying for new
(17:26):
credit? Um, if, when you, every time you Apply for a form
of credit, then that will create a hard
inquiry in your credit report. So those get recorded in your
credit report. And that just lets, uh, your
lenders know or potential lenders know, like, hey, this person is
actively seeking out credit right now.
Is everything okay? You know, um,
are they over leveraging themselves with credit? So
(17:49):
it's just, it'it's a very minor impact on
your credit report. The least impactful factor,
um, it counts for, I think,
10%. Um, so those other
factors you really want to pay attention to are
your payment history and your credit utilization.
>> Anthony (18:06):
And it's awesome that you even found a
job with such, you know, while you're building
your credit at one of the credit bureaus, which is pretty
cool. Um, um, but also
it's interesting that they complain to you.
Well, they put their frustrations out there
without saying, like, hey, maybe us as
(18:27):
parents could have at least taken some time
out to explain to you what is
to deal with other finances or even credit in
general. So do you have any kids
now?
>> Christina Roman (18:39):
I do, I do. I have one son. He's five years
old. And yeah, these are things
that we talk about with my son. I talk about
budgeting. There's so many things in life and this is why
I think it's really common that, um,
especially in minority cultures, we're told,
get your education, get a good job.
>> Anthony (18:59):
Yep.
>> Christina Roman (19:00):
Then what? Then what? Okay, I have a, I have a good job now. I have
all this money. Okay, let me go shopping, let me buy the latest
car. You know, you see this with a lot of people that end up having money
really fast. Then they're like, oh, I have this
money, I can spend it. They don't realize
that they can invest in themselves. They can. They don't
realize that taking on too much debt over leverages
(19:20):
himself, you know, and so, um,
having those table conversations are so
important. Talking about money, talking about a budget. I
talked to my son frequently about, like, hey,
that's not in our budget right now. You know, he always wants me to buy him a
toy that's not in our budget right now. And
I set up a system for him to start to earn stars
(19:41):
so that he can earn money. And that way
if he wants something, he can buy it. Now I'll
take him to Target. And I say, okay, you've got 10 bucks. You can
buy a 10$10 item, or you could buy something
cheaper and save a little bit, um, for
maybe your next trip. So the next time we come, you have a little bit more
to spend or you can just save it and spend
(20:02):
it somewhere else, you know, so we do talk to
him about that. But that is my
goal is to set him up so that he understands
how credit works. And so I also have an 11,
a brother who's 11 years younger than me. So
when he entered um, um, the age where he could start using
credit, I talked to him about making sure that you don't
(20:22):
over leverage yourself with credit, that you don't take on debt,
that you pay it off. I talked to him about opening
401k because this is all information
that was not shared with me. It was like, oh, yeah,
you should do it, but why should I do it, right? I
didn't start to invest in my 401k until my
30s. I lost out on all those, those
years where I, I could have been accumulating interest
(20:44):
on a retirement account. So when my brother who started
working his company offered him a 401k, I said, Invest
in your 401k now. Okay? I want you to be set
up better than I was. So those
are conversations that I have with my brother, with
my cousins, with anybody that will listen
to hopefully get them set up for their
(21:05):
financial future. This Christmas, I actuallyught bought my
cousin who had m been complaining that she didn't know
how to manage money. I bought her uh,
financial books for Christmas. So that way. Or financial
literacy books for Christmas. So that
way. Yeah, because I want my
family, you know, to rise to, to
(21:25):
make the right choices with their money.
>> Anthony (21:28):
And that's really good that they at least approached
you. But I guess obviously you got
the, the big brand behind you. It was like, obviously I'm
talking about here.
Uh, but can you go back and talk about
the star system a little bit? How does your child
actually earn those stars?
>> Christina Roman (21:45):
Yeah, so, um, um, if he.
So every day at school he earns colored
dots. So green for he had good
behavior, yellow for I. Hey. We had to give him a
few instructions. Red is like, whoa. He
really was not listening. And so he,
he earned a red star, um,
for the green dots, he'll get a star. He
(22:08):
has to earn stars for several things. He has to brush
his teeth, he has to get himself dressed. He has to
get the green dot. He's got to say his prayers. At the end of the
night. He has an option to do piano
lessons. Um, we have, we bought a keyboard
so that he could set up YouTube and we
do a piano less on YouTube. Only five minutes. That's all I asked
for. You know, and then there's other Extra things
(22:31):
that he could do to earn stars. So we have a dog. If
he feeds the dog without being asked
then he can earn a star. If he,
if um, I asked him to let Ramy out
to use a restroom and he lets him back in,
he could earn a star that way. So there's different ways that he can
earn stars. Um, the one that we're having a little
(22:51):
bit of a harder time with is cleaning the room.
>> Anthony (22:53):
Ok.
>> Christina Roman (22:54):
In that.
>> Anthony (22:56):
So does each like star count to like a dollar amount
or is it just kind of like.
>> Christina Roman (23:02):
So uh, it varies. Honestly. We will tell
him we give him a target. So the first time
that he did it we told him you could earn a ten dollar prize. And I said
you're not every week andna earn a ten dollar prize. I said some
days it'll just be a five dollar but so it's not
a set amount that we have. But I don't want to
go over like $. I think
(23:22):
that's too much for a five year old.
>> Anthony (23:24):
Okay, well mean, he sound like you're making bank over
there. So.
>> Christina Roman (23:28):
Yeah. And he does it.
What was interesting to me is he's really incentivized by
that. And he'll go to the refrigerator. Soon as he feeds the
dog he'll go and he'll put his star, it's a magnetic star
system. And he'll put a star next to the right one. And
then if he sees uh, like he didn't do his piano lessons
at all this week so he's got no stars there but he has
(23:48):
to complete it all for five days. So there's
like six categories that he has to complete. Otherwise he doesn't earn it.
He gets nothing.
>> Anthony (23:56):
Oh he don't get not like not one. So
he can do everything right and not do us piano lessons
all the way through. So he doesn't get not one get it?
>> Christina Roman (24:05):
Nope. That's. That's the rul.
You have to complete the whole thing. Uh, but that's where the extra
stars come in because say he didn't do his piano lesson but he opted to
feed the dog. Those can take the place
less. Yes. Yeah. So that's where extra
stars kind of come into play. If he doesn't do any of that,
then no, he doesn't get anything.
>> Anthony (24:25):
That is smart.
Well I wanted to go back to that because for some people who are just
have young children and just trying to figure out how to
create a system for that child and obviously everybody
does it a little differently. I'm just curious on how you all
do it with your family?
>> Christina Roman (24:40):
Um, yeah.
>> Anthony (24:41):
Yeah. So now that you guys are
like doing well, Everybody's at the
800 mark and I. All that fun stuff,
like looking back,
what is it? What is the one of those habits that you
feel as though that you can actually just say, you
know what? This money habit should just go to trash. I don't want to say it
anymore. I don't need this in my life
(25:03):
anymore.
>> Christina Roman (25:05):
The money habit that should go in the trash
is impulse spending. Honestly,
it's, um, I noticed so that this is one of the things I did
this year was I, I,
um, look through my
spending to see, okay, where is my
money going? Because again, you always need to
check your spending. You always need to kind of
(25:27):
recalibrate, right? Um, sometimes you get
comfortable, you're managing money fine.
Your, um, your
credits looking good. So you kind of just go through
life. You're like, well, I'MAKE I'm paying my bills on time,
you know, um, I'm comfortable.
But just taking that extra time
to review your spending can actually really show
(25:50):
you just where all of your money is going. And
that was really eye opening for me. That's something I did in January
was I sat down and I looked at, okay, where's our, all of our money going?
And I realized our money is going to eating out
and our, uh, money is going to Amazon.
Impulse spending. You know, I have the app on my
phone, I get the package the next day. So I'm like,
(26:10):
oh, I didn't know I always needed,
um, you know, this, this thing that I, that I
saw on social media. And so I see it on social
media, I go on the app and I buy it and then boom, it's at
my house eight hours later, it's at my house the very next
day. And so I said, okay,
well we're gonna stop that. And
(26:30):
so I told my husband, we're making our meals at home,
we're going toa eat out once a week. Um,
and no more
impulse spending. If I'm going to buy something on Amazon,
on Amazon, or on an app on my phone,
it has a purpose behind it. There was a plan for it,
there's a reason why I wanted it. But if I find
(26:51):
myself looking at social media and saying,
oh, that's a cool gadget, I need that. No,
I don't make that purchase. I'm trying to be really
intentional with my spending. And I feel like
that's really, actually saved us quite a bit of
money, is bringing to mind to
myself and to my Husband. Hey, we're spending a lot of
(27:11):
money without really thinking about it.
If we're a little bit more intentional with our money, we actually
save more. And it's been really good the
last couple of months. I've. We've seen a
change in just how we're able to manage our
finances.
>> Anthony (27:26):
That is amazing. Um, um, to look at the impulse
buy, but actually have it with a purpose now, so I'll take it. You
only order from Amazon once a month?
>> Christina Roman (27:35):
Um, no. So, like, when I say with the purpose.
So we're having a, um, like a tomorra
Gentine's event. Right. And so, um,
my mom said, you're in charge of like, some of the decor items. So
I went and I specifically looked at,
okay, what is a decor item that I'm going to bring? And I
purchased just exactly what I wanted to bring. And then
(27:55):
that's it. Um, so like, that's
what I mean by being intentional. But I'm not
just like looking online and seeing like, oh, that's a cool
yadget. I need that. Or hey, I like that shirt. I want that.
I don't need that right now. If it wasn't in my
closet. And one of the things that I noticed, and my mom
just did this today, I was talking on the phone to her. So my
(28:15):
mom, um, for holidays or
any events, she always bought us new clothing.
We always had a new shirt to wear. We always had. I always had a
new dress to wear, you know, for every event that
happened. And so we have a
wedding shower coming up. And she said, oh, what are you going
to get to wear? And I said, oh, no, Mom, I'm shopping my
closet because I have dresses in my
(28:38):
closet. But that is a habit that's been
ingrained in me all my life. My mom just always, for every
holiday, for every event, bought us new clothing. And
so I'm saying I've got
clothing, I have dresses. I've bought them for every event leading up
to this, you know, so I can find something
in my closet to wear.
>> Anthony (28:57):
That's interesting because one of the things, like my mom
used to do the same thing when I was younger, but it was only
because the other kids in the neighborhood were getting it.
So it's almost like the environment was feeding that
particular impulse. Buying and purchasing. Instead of just
saying like, hey, nobody's going to see or
even notice that this is new or not, just iron it, wash
(29:17):
it, use it.
>> Christina Roman (29:19):
U. Um, yeah.
>> Anthony (29:20):
So how important is the environment when
it comes to understanding and staying to your
budget to You.
>> Christina Roman (29:29):
The environment is everything. Honestly,
um, within my
household, we have built a system.
Right. But when you go externally,
there's a lot of external pressures, especially
when, like, I'm from a Hispanic
family that is pretty big. We get together
all the time. And when we get together, it's a
(29:51):
birthday, it's, you know, an anniversary celebration,
or if you're not buying gift, you're bringing food. Right.
So you're buying stuff to make food for a lot of people.
And so, um, Josh and I
talked about how we need to set boundaries also. I
think there's a lot of expectation that, um,
um, you're always available, that
(30:12):
you're always going to, um,
um, be able to participate in.
In a ton of events or, you know,
um, um, show up on a whim.
You get invited to like, Sunday dinner or whatever,
but setting the expectation of like, yeah, we can be there,
but we're not going to purchase
anything or we're not going to bring anything
(30:34):
because it wasn't in the budget, you know, if you want us
to plan ahead for something, great. But we,
we need to be intentional about communicating that because that's
also where I realized we can spend a lot of money on our
family.
>> Anthony (30:46):
Yeah.
Um, and coming to back to the parents side of the
house, um, you talked a little bit
about how they impacted you early on.
How is now in your position or where you at
now impacting their lives?
>> Christina Roman (31:03):
U. Um, I think we're a lot more open
with talking about money. We actually have
a lot more conversations about money. Um, my
brother, he's been really good
about setting boundaries with them, with my parents
and letting even, you know. You know, he
moved about 15 minutes away and so
(31:24):
he. I was talking to him on the phone the other day and I said, hey, I miss you. I
haven't seen you in a while. He said, yeah, you know, right now things
are tight and so I can't come down all the time.
M. But, you know, let's set a date so that we can
get together. So these are conversations that are happening and
we understand that. Okay. You know, this
is just where we are. We're all at different places in our life. But I'm happy
(31:44):
that he's prioritizing his budget and
that he knows that he doesn't want to overextend himself.
You know, um, my
dad also. It's interesting. My dad's been talking a lot more
about investing and, you know, talking about the
importance of investing. And so he
doesn't invest a lot. He's always said, I want to figure out
how to invest and I want to figure out how to invest. I don't
(32:07):
really know how to invest in. To be perfectly honest, I'm not investing much
aside from my 401k and maybe I think I
own one, um,
like stock on, on Robinhood, you
know. Um, so I want to really
boost my investing knowledge this year. That's a goal that
I've set for myself. So my dad, he said, hey, when
(32:27):
you learn something, please share with me because I want to
learn too. I want to invest too. So that's
something that, that is new and it's exciting and I'm glad that
we're having these conversations too.
>> Anthony (32:39):
That is really good. There's a book that I usually
give or recommend, shall I say, to a lot of people who
are just getting into investing in.
The book is called the Simple Path to Wealth by J.L.
collins. And the reason why, because he
wrote the book for his daughter who wouldn't listen to him when he was trying to tell
her about investing. So he was like,
(32:59):
well, here you go. Whenever you decide to read
it, it's here for you. But it's really
simple. Um, and I usually give that book away for
gifts as well for like the holidays.
So, you know, if you guys on my live show, I do
give away books around the holiday season. So make sure
you'all sign up. Uh, but that's just
one of the books is just a suggestion if you.
>> Christina Roman (33:20):
Yeah, thank you.
>> Anthony (33:22):
Yeah.
Um, so we're going to go into the futures just a little bit
here, um, which is talking about,
you know, what areas that you plan on
focusing on for yourself, um, um, or even in
your career.
>> Christina Roman (33:37):
Yeah, I think for
myself. Um, um, I mentioned
investing. That's something that I really want to
research more. U. Um, that's a goal of mine. I
just recently actually up the
amount that I'm putting into my 401k
and um, so that way I can really start to
maximize it. But learning how
(34:00):
to grow my money is where I'm at right now. And
then also, you know, uh,
looking into high yield savings accounts.
I've known about these. I'm in this industry. I've known about
these for so many years. But uh, to be perfectly honest, I
haven't taken the actions there
to even just earn a little bit of money on,
(34:20):
you know, my savings. Why not? So that's something
that I'm looking into. U. Um,
what else am I looking into
for my own future?
Yeah, right now I think it's really investing and
growing my wealth and then also investing for my
(34:41):
son. That's another thing that I contacted um,
my, my 401k company and I said I
want to open an account for my son because I really want to set him
up for success. He has already uh, a
college savings plan so we did that several years
ago. So we put money into that account and
for Christmas, you know, I have family members that uh,
(35:02):
put into that account. But I want to open up an
investment account for him as well so that way I
can, you know, have something for him when
he gets ready to enter adulthood, you
know.
>> Anthony (35:14):
Yeah, that's really good. Uh, uh, especially starting them
off young, you know, things that you wish your parents would have done
for you. It's good that you'like you know what I'm doing
as soon as I get a Social Security number. We
yeah, that makes sense.
Now when it comes to adding your child owner,
the authorized user. Mhm. I know
(35:34):
it changes from child to child,
but is it a good thing to do that?
>> Christina Roman (35:40):
Yeah, it can be a good thing. Um, and
honestly the good thing about having an authorized user
or having your child as an authorized users, you get to
determine u, um, if they're going to have
access to a credit card to that account that
you're going to be signing them as an authorized user for. You get to
determine if they're going toa even be able to use it. Um,
I, I know people that have added their children as authorized
(36:02):
users but they never get to touch a card. They
just benefit from their credit history.
Now does that teach them how to use
credit? Maybe a better option would be to give
them the card and say this is your
limit and this uh, and this is what
I expect you to pay back. You know, you can only charge
when you have the amount to pay back. But that has
(36:25):
to be coordinated between the two of you because
you are the one, the parent is the one that's legally
responsible for what's charged on their cards.
So even if they call and say well my son
charged a thousand dollar, you know, computer on
my charge, that wasn't me, there's nothing that they can do,
they're gonna have to pay it back. You know, so
(36:45):
that's a contract that you need to develop with your child,
that's a conversation you need to have with your child but
still you as the parent, ah, are responsible for what's owed on the
account.
>> Anthony (36:55):
That makes sense.
>> Christina Roman (36:56):
And then, sorry, one more thing there. You just want to make
sure that when you add the child as an authorized user that they
do report it to the credit bureau. So if you're
asking your, your creditor, okay, do I, uh,
if I had my child, is that going to be reported to the
bureaus? And they say yes, then that's going to help them to build
credit.
>> Anthony (37:14):
Oh, I didn't even know that they had that option to
not send it over.
>> Christina Roman (37:20):
It depends on the lender, honestly.
>> Anthony (37:22):
Okay. And since you just rece received the
information when it comes to a credit dispute,
because this is the biggest thing, uh, uh,
what is the best way to do it? Is it to go through the
lender or talk to you guys directly?
>> Christina Roman (37:37):
If you're doing a credit dispute, you want to go to
your credit report and you.
So you can contact the lender and say,
you know, hey, you made a mistake on my credit report.
But I think it might be, I think it's more
beneficial if you go through your credit report. On
every credit report, there's dispute instructions. You follow those
instructions. If you're doing it online, typically it's as easy as clicking the
(38:00):
button next to the item that you want to dispute.
You explain in detail why
you, uh, feel as though what's been reported is incorrect.
And then if you can upload any supporting
documents that can help us. When we're going to your lender
on your behalf and saying, this consumer says that this
information is inc. Torrect, here's the supporting documents.
(38:21):
Please review this and let us know,
um, the results of your findings. Um,
they have, ah, 30 to 45 days to let
us know. Often it happens even faster.
We'll know within a couple of days the results of that
dispute.
>> Anthony (38:36):
That's amazing. Is there any laws that we can kind
of tack on to say, like, hey,
well, we didn't sign up for this particular
thing. There was no signature with this new
lender. So, like, if it's going through, like, collections
for that point, is there something that we can
go.
>> Christina Roman (38:54):
If you didn't sign up for it, then that's likely
fraud. So you want to go through the fraud process.
So, um, you know, contacting
the lender, letting them know I was not the person that opened that
account, that's not even my signature on it. And then
you go through the process. You may have to file a police
report, but all of that information backs up your
(39:14):
claim that that was not you. So
you want to look into the steps for reporting fraud
in that case. Got, um, it.
And if at the end of the dispute process
you determine, you know what, we did not come to an
agreement here, I'm showing Proof that I paid,
they're saying that I didn't pay. You can put a statement of
(39:35):
dispute that gets added to your credit report, letting
them, letting you explain your situation. The only thing
about a statement of dispute is that,
um, the information will fall off
typically after seven years. So if
at that point it's probably a good time to, to
go on and remove that statement of dispute, otherwise
it's going to stay there and lenders are going to wonder, what is this
(39:58):
even for?
>> Anthony (39:59):
That makes sense.
All right, now this question came
from the credit chat that I really wanted to ask
you, uh, because I thought this was
interesting, which is how can
a credit history impact the ability to
build wealth and what steps that individuals
can take to improve their financial standing?
>> Christina Roman (40:20):
Yeah, so we, Sorry.
So anytime we talk about credit, we always emphasize
the fact that credit is the financial tool
and what cred your credit
history does is your credit history, if managed well, when
you go to apply for loans in the future,
um, um, your credit history is what that
(40:40):
lender is going to use to determine
the interest rate that you're going to qualify for. Right? That's notn.
It's not going to be the sole factor in determining if you
get, ah, approved for a loan. A lot of times,
again, they'll take into account, um,
your savings, your income, your
job, um, how long you've been at your job, your stability,
(41:01):
things like that. So those are things that they'll factor in. But
your credit history specifically will impact
the interest with which, uh, you'll qualify for
a loan. Right? The better your credit score, the lower the interest
rate. The lower the interest rate, the more you're going to save
over the life of your loan. So when you have
a goal in mind, like purchasing a home,
(41:22):
the better your credit history and your credit
score, the better that interest rate is going to be.
That's going to help you to qualify, that's going to help you to save
money. It could, that, that interest rate could be the
difference of 10 to, uh, thousands to
tens of thousands of dollars on a loan,
you know, maybe even a hundred thousand. But
(41:42):
that's why we always say before you're going to make a major
purchase, check your credit report three to six months in
advance to determine if there's anything that
you need to change. If there's something that looks, um,
off on your credit report, you have that time
to, uh, bring your debt down. You know,
that's one of the quickest ways that you're going to impact your credit score.
So, okay, I want to, I Want to apply for a
(42:04):
home? I need to reduce my debt. Let me, you know,
take the steps to do that so that way you
can qualify for the best possible interest rates. That's why we say it
does matter when you're trying to build wealth. We know
that home ownership is one of the. The best
ways to build wealth. Um, in the
United States, you have that home, you have that
(42:24):
equity. So the better you manage your
credit, then the better you're going to be able to get
that process rolling.
>> Anthony (42:32):
Thank you so much for that info.
Uh, is there anything that you want to leave that
the person that's listened to this right now, before we dive
into the final four questions?
>> Christina Roman (42:44):
Yeah, I just want you to be
curious about your credit. Um, um.
Check your credit score. A lot of Check your credit
report and your credit score. Um, um, A lot of people
think that checking their credit report is going to negatively
impact their credit. That's not true. I was actually sitting with
my husband while he was getting his hair cut in a
(43:05):
barber shop, and I remember hearing them have this
conversation, say, don't check your credit report. You'renna you're gon
toa hurt your. Your credit score. Only check it, like,
when you absolutely have to. And, and I had to interject
because, no, that is not true. And I don't want
that myth to continue. Check your credit
report as often as you want. You can check your credit report
(43:25):
weekly at annual credit report.go. um,
annual creditport.com from
Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Those are the
three major credit bureaus. So you can check it for, uh,
there for free. Weekly, you can get your
FICO score and your Experian credit report from
experian.com. um, and
remember, it's the information that's in your credit report that's
(43:47):
informing your credit score. So you want to make
sure that you know the information that's being
reported about you to your lenders. So be
curious with your credit.
>> Anthony (43:58):
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. So you're
ready for the final four?
>> Christina Roman (44:02):
Yes.
>> Anthony (44:03):
Alghty
number one, what does wealth mean to
you?
>> Christina Roman (44:17):
Wealth means freedom.
To me, that it means
having the freedom to live
an authentic life. Live life the way that I want
to live it, be the person that I want to be.
I often feel like when I'm
most financially strapped, I'm stressed
(44:37):
out. I'm, um, um,
um, unhappy.
I tend to put the things that give me joy
aside. And wealth, to me
means having the freedom to do all the
things that I love and
um, um,
joy and
(44:59):
yeah, that's what, that's what wealth means to me.
Freedom.
>> Anthony (45:03):
Number two, what was your
worst money mistake?
>> Christina Roman (45:09):
My worst money mistake
was opening a credit card without
understanding how it worked. Um um.
I highly encourage you if you're going to use the
financial tool, understand how it works, read the terms and
conditions and talk to
your family members about
(45:29):
these tools as well. Share the knowledge
that's so important.
>> Anthony (45:35):
Number three, is there a book that inspired
you U uh, your journey or
change your perspective?
>> Christina Roman (45:45):
It's not a financial book. I will say that
um, I when I was was just learning about money, I
would say I was. It was podcasts more than anything
that, that helped me to kind of
navigate. I remember I listened frequently to like
Rait Sety. I listened to um, Stacking
Benjamin'aaron um Lowry
wrote a great book Broke Millennial. Those were all great
(46:07):
financial books. But a book that truly
changed my life. God can I say to I
have two that are really o say but
okay, the book that the books that changed my
life for the better or the for agreements.
Um um. I love that book so much.
I It's just that book is truly
freeing about letting go of
(46:30):
judgments. U um,
it's such a fantastic book. And the other book that
I love that I still reference to this day, I read it I think two
years ago. U um, Atomic Habits.
That's a book that, that
made me take action right away.
>> Anthony (46:47):
Yeah.
>> Christina Roman (46:47):
And it made it so simple and it's a the
be just 1% better every day. That's
something that I live by.
>> Anthony (46:55):
Love it. It's such a great book.
Yeah, I watch what that one.
>> Christina Roman (47:00):
I still make my bed. I made my bed this morning. You
know, like. Yeah, it's things that that just
little things that, that I live by.
>> Anthony (47:10):
Number four, what is your favorite dish to
make?
>> Christina Roman (47:15):
My favorite dish to make
is um. Um. I
love breakfast. Breakfast is my favorite item or uh,
my favorite meal of the of the day. But
my favorite dish is shakshuka. It's
like a, it's a tomato dish
uh, with eggs and it's
so savory and good and I eat it with a piece
(47:38):
of I'll havem um,
either nonaan or I'll have it with sourdough
bread. But it just has really
nice spice flavors. It's a really
um, robust
flavor profile and
um, it's really good.
>> Anthony (47:57):
Sounds like a forty dollar dish to me.
>> Christina Roman (47:59):
No, it'it's uh, actually not. Actually not. It's made with
tomatoes, onions, a Ton of
spices and eggs. Like you could just put
two eggs in. You make a little pocket for them. I guess the egg
part is the right.
But yeah, but yeah. And I
cheat a little bit. I honestly use stew tomatoes,
(48:20):
um, in my, in my cabinet. But
it's so good at the um, the
flavor profile is wonderful.
>> Anthony (48:28):
We won't tell anybody.
>> Christina Roman (48:29):
So.
>> Anthony (48:32):
Uh, the last question of the show, which is where could people
find out more about you?
>> Christina Roman (48:37):
Yeah, um, first. Well, I hope you go
toian.com if you have credit questions.
If you want to learn about credit, uh, check out
our Askian blog and then you could find
me on X. Every Wednesday at Ah, 3:00
Pacific, we host a credit chat. It's been going
since 2012. Every week we touch on a
(48:57):
different personal finance topic that matters to um,
um, everyone. We touch on life, um,
financial topics. We talk m this,
uh, I think this next week we're going to talk about
taxes. But yeah, so whatever topic is timely,
we're usually talking about it on X. So you can
find me there. I'm tweeting at or I'm
xing ha. What is it now? Um, Tina,
(49:20):
underscore Ro and you can find
me on LinkedIn at. Ah, Christina Roman.
Um, um, yeah, come in and message
me, chat with me. I'm always happy to answer
any questions, general questions you can you have about
credit. I can't give specific advice but, um, I'm
always happy to answer general questions about credit.
>> Anthony (49:41):
And they also have a podcast called
Credit Chat check out.
>> Christina Roman (49:45):
Yes. And Anthony was just our guests on that
wonderful podcast. I had so much fun talking to you on
that episode and I'm glad that because of that I get to be
here talking with you again.
>> Anthony (49:56):
I appreciate it. We got to dive in a little bit more, which is
great.
>> Christina Roman (49:59):
Yeah.
>> Anthony (50:00):
So I appreciate your time. Um,
and for you who are listening right now that you've made it
this far, I just really want to let you know that you have what it
takes to go to the next level. Just be
sure to ask. You
never know what somebody might know and they might be
able to be able to guide you to that next level that where you
(50:20):
want to be, um, with your credit. And I wish
that you achieve the
level that you need to order to get that
interest rate that you want because you have the good credit and by
listening to this episode. So if anything,
you'all be safe. Re out. Peace.
And then I started to see, okay, life's getting a little
(00:03):
bit easier. Even, just, even knowing that I
still carried that debt, but knowing that I was tackling it
felt like things were, were lifting off my shoulder. I felt
lighter on my toes. I was like, okay, this, this feels
good. Now how do I make it even better? And from
there I just started to work on my credit. And
now today I hit the 800s, which is
incredible. I'm like, really proud of myself for doing
(00:25):
that.
>> Anthony (00:29):
Welcome back everybody to another exciting
with about that water podcast where we help
the Sadwich generation build strong financial habits so that
they can talk about money, spend money
and enjoy their money with confidence. And
one of the things that I'm, um, having for this particular
episode is talking about how to
(00:49):
overcome your budgeting willoes,
build up your credit and even talk about some of those
money mistakes that you've been dealing with and how to overcome
those. And one of the best people to actually
have to talk about this is
Christina Roman. How you doing today,
Christina?
>> Christina Roman (01:07):
I'm doing well, thank you. Thank you so much for having
me. I'm excited to be here to share knowledge and
to talk about financial mistakes. That's one of the things I really love
to talk about because I have made my fair share. I will say
that.
>> Anthony (01:20):
Haven't we all?
Uh, and you're coming from like, one of the,
like you're currently working at one of the, the
top three biggest
ownown companies, which is
experience. You know, what is the experience
like being there?
>> Christina Roman (01:38):
Being anian has been
incredible. It's an incredible company to work out. It's a company that's
changed my life for the better. Um, um, when
I first started working here in
2015, I
was on a credit rebuilding journey. I started as
a social media specialist for them.
And I remember when I was in the hiring
(02:00):
process. So how it worked is one of my friends at the company
that I was previously working at ended up going and working in
itian and so every once in a while she
would send jobs over our way. And um,
she said, hey, Christine, I think this would be a great fit for you because I was
doing social media at the company that we worked at before
and, uh, I went through the process
(02:20):
and um, my boss at the time, Mike
Delgado, or the one that I interviewed with, it
was incredible. Just coming into this big
corporation, first of all, you turn, uh, into
exper Experience. It's three huge buildings and I
came from very small, uh,
businesses previously. So it was like we were working in a
warehouse. We were working in a back office
(02:42):
somewhere. And then for this experience, I
pulled into this huge campus with
three buildings. And it was intimidating. I was like, I don't know
if I'm ready for this kind of a job.
For corporate culture, I don't know what that's like. But
Mike Delgado, the first question he asked
me was, where are you from?
(03:02):
And I said, oh, I'm from Long Beach, California. Uh,
and he's like, oh, they have a great food scene. And then we just started
talking about lobster rolls. We started talking about
our favorite restaurants. And that put
me so at ease for the job interview. And
that kind of was the telltale sign to how
the company is in general.
(03:23):
It's such, um, um, I don't know. The
industry itself is an intense industry, right? The
credit industry, data. Um, um.
But the, the business itself, it doesn't feel that
way. It feels like
just you're with your family. I don't know if
that sounds cliche to say, but it was just so
easy going. Everybody that I interviewed with was very down to
(03:45):
earth. Um, we clicked really
quickly and I just felt like,
this is a place that I want to be. This is where I meant to
be. And, um, so
when I was going through the interview process, I really
wanted the job. I, I had interviewed
with everybody, everybody I really enjoyed interviewing with.
(04:05):
And I really wanted that job. I prayed
for that job. And when I was talking to the HR
person in the final step, I said, look, I know
you're a credit bureau. My history with credit
is not that great, and I hope it's not going
to impact me. I've been on a rebuilding journey, I
promise. Like, I'm, um, getting myself
(04:25):
together. And she was like, it's fine,
relaxed. You're gonna be okay.
And so I was just hoping that that was not going
to impact me. But once I came here, and I know this is
a long winded story, and I apologize. I'm so
passionate about this company that I work for
because, um, Mike Delgado, when I started working
for him, he said, okay, Christina, our goal is
(04:48):
to, to do credit education on social
media. And I said, well, I love
social media. Let me tell you what I don't know a lot about, and that's
credit. And so I was very honest. I said, look, I made
every mistake with credit. I ruined my Credit. In my 20s,
I've been rebuilding, but it's kind of. I've been
piecing things together from different things that I've read
online. And he's like, that's totally fine.
(05:10):
I'm going to give you all the resources we have. He sent
me article after article after article.
He connected me to the team that I'm currently on now,
where I attended a, uh, training session with them. I
worked with, I read over every article that they put together.
I worked with them on campaigns. And then I started
to learn so much about credit that it started to
(05:31):
improve my financial life. That's why I Saidian
has been, has been the best place that I've
worked at, and it's, it's honestly changed my life for the better
in so many ways. Not just from
the, the benefits that they offer, the
corporate culture is incredible, but also,
um, the tools that they offer their credit
(05:51):
monitoring, the tools that they've made available to
help consumers, to boost their credit. Um, it's
all innovated over the past.
Let's see, what is this? Almost 10 years, the company
has grown in strides in the steps that they've taken to help
consumers, and they've helped me, and I, in turn, get to
turn around and join these amazing podcasts to help other
(06:12):
people.
>> Anthony (06:13):
And because, you know, you say you talked about credit
was bad, like, how bad was it?
>> Christina Roman (06:19):
Oh, it was bad. It was,
it was, um. Um. So
when I was in college, I
made the mistake of opening a credit card
and not really understanding
how credit worked. So I didn't know what
an interest rate was. I didn't know,
(06:39):
um, like, I didn't know
that missing a payment was going to impact me for seven years. I thought, oh,
you missed a payment, you catch up. Not a big deal, you
know. But, um, I. So what happened is
I opened a credit card and they said, you have a
0% interest for 12 months. Me not knowing how interest
rates worked at the time, I thought that meant I didn't have
(06:59):
to pay for 12 months. So then I started
getting bills, and I was like, why am I
getting a bill? I don't even OE for 12 months. But, okay, here's a
track of everything that I owe and some. And then, I'll
be honest with you, sometimes I didn't even look at the bill. I was like, oh, they're sending me
another one of those bills. Like, I don't know them,
though. And then, um, it
got bad. I started getting collection
(07:22):
calls. Um, one of
the, the women was through
my, my bank on campus. And
I remember her by name. Her name was Simone.
And, um, she was a big impact in my
life. She's the one that talked to me
like a parent almost, and said, okay, Christina,
you clearly don't understand how credit works. Because she would tell me,
(07:44):
hey, you need to pay. And I'd say, I don't have the money to pay. And
she said, well, we're going to report you to the bureau's. And I said, well, I don't know what that even
means. That. What do you mean you're going to report me to the bureau's? And she's
like, okay, you really don't understand how this
works, right? And I said, no. So she actually would take the
time to talk to me, and then, uh,
she would call me again when I missed payments, and she'd be like,
christina Simone again. You know,
(08:07):
let's talk. What are we going toa do? How are we going toa get you caught
up? And so she was the one that really made me
curious about, okay, how is this really
impacting me? So I ruined
my credit. I would say I think I was in the
400s at one point. And
what happened was, uh. And if you're not familiar with the
(08:27):
credit range, credit range goes from 300 to
850. Um, 850 being the highest,
850 being, you know, your goal, or,
you know, upper 700 to 8 hundreds is your goal.
Right. Um, I had
a car that was constantly breaking down,
and so this car was eating through all my money, and
I decided I needed to go and get a new car.
(08:49):
Um, again,
being completely naive to how credit worked. I went to the
lot and I found this car that I liked.
It was affordable, it wasn't anything fancy. It
was like, um, the cheapest, uh, the cheapest
version that I could find. Um, low
mileage, whatever. And they ran my
credit, and my mom was with me, and she
(09:12):
had always told me, don't get a credit card. Credit cards are
bad. She didn't know my financial situation.
And the person was like, ooh,
okay, so we run your
credit and
you're go going toa need a coigner. And I
was like, okay. He said, u, um, you're
gonna need a cosigner or you're goingna need to try to accept it a
(09:34):
loan at a 19% interest rate.
And I was like, oh, I don't even know what that means, but
okay, 19%. And my mom's jaw
was on the floor. She was just like,
she's like, we're gonna walk away right now
and we're gonna figure this out. And I was like,
what's wrong? Like, I didn't understand still at
(09:54):
the time how high that truly was
for a car. Um, so
she was really mad at, she didn't talk to me the whole way home
and I was just like, what happened? I don't
understand this. Well, a few
days later I went to my parents house just to pop in
into visit and the minute I walked in my
(10:14):
door, the door, my dad just
started screaming at me about like
what are you doing with your life? How could you be so
financially irresponsible? U
um, and I just,
I got completely attacked from my parents
about what I had done. It was, it was
a tough situation to be in. It was the very eye
(10:36):
opening situation to be in. They really explained.
No, don't. I don't even say that. They didn't explain anything to me.
They just yelled at. And then I went home
and I started to say okay, clearly I've
done something wrong and I need to figure
out how to get out of this. So at the
time I was dating my now husband and he's
very financially responsible. U
(11:00):
and we talked about everything that I was
going through and he kind of knew but I
didn't really want to tell him too much. But
once this happened I kind of laid it all out
and he's like, okay, I'm gonna co sign
a car for you. And I was just like what
he said? I he's like, he told me, I see
(11:21):
a future with you. I'm go going to co sign on a car for
you. But you need to know that
if you do not make your payments, it's going
to impact my credit. He's like, you've already ruined
your credit. I need to help you rebuild. So if
you miss uh, a payment, you're going to impact me
negatively. And that
(11:42):
also, that put a lot of pressure on me. So I was like,
okay, I'm going toa get my bills in order. I'm
gonna learn how to, how to manage my
budget properly. So that way I make sure that I make those
payments. And I did, I did not miss a single payment
on that car loan. And that kind of started
that snowball. Effective okay, I'm doing this
right now. Let me bring my credit down. And so I
(12:04):
started my credit debt down. So I started to look up
ways to reduce credit debt and so I did,
you know, the calculators, interest rate calculators, how much can I
realistically afford to pay? And we just started
doing that and I just started chipping away at my debt
and then I started to see, okay,
life's getting a little bit easier even just
(12:25):
even knowing that I still carried that debt but knowing That I was
tackling.
It felt like things were, were lifting off
my shoulder. I felt lighter on my toes. I was like, okay,
this, this feels good. Now how do I make it even
better? And from there I just started to work on
my credit. And now today I hit the eight
hundreds which is incredible. I'm like really proud of myself
(12:46):
for doing that from knowing that I got that low,
but also knowing, okay, now I'm in the eight hundreds,
this is possible. And that's kind of what I try to
share with consumers when we talk about credit. Doesn't matter
where you are, you can take the steps to improve
it. Um, and it's important that you do
that.
>> Anthony (13:04):
You know, you hit the credit bur I got to ask these questions
uh, because everybody going to have them. Um, I
think this is beyond you now I guess at this
point. But uh, u
obviously what is the credit like the breakdown
of a credit score, if you don't mind going through that
and then what ways
(13:25):
that you've seen has been the best for us. Like a
budgeting strategy has been good.
>> Christina Roman (13:31):
Okay, so u
credit scores. First of all, it's
important to know that there are so many credit scores
in motion. You know, um, you have
your a lot of scoring models that are commonly
known include FICO and Vantage score and they
weigh information differently. They're the
(13:52):
algorithms that calculate your credit scores. They are
proprietary to them, so they're not the bureau's credit
scores. And I think it's important to kind of separate
credit scoring models from the credit
bureaus. So the bureaus are responsible for
managing and maintaining your credit report.
So um, how the cycle works, you open
up a line of credit, you make your payments,
(14:14):
the lender updates their records, they report that information
to the bureaus who then store that information
in your credit report or your credit history.
Then when you go to open credit in the future, we share
that information with the lender. Now the
lender then may choose to run it through a
credit scoring algorithm to help them
quickly analyze your credit report. So what that does that
(14:37):
algorithm looks at your report and it assigns a three
digit number, typically between 300 to 850.
That's your credit score. Um, and then from there
the lender will use that along with a variety of
other factors, including your income, your stability,
to determine if you qualify for that loan. Right. So
what are the factors that make up your credit score?
(14:58):
Your payment history is a number one factor
impacting your credit score. So it's imperative that you make your payments
on time. I always tell People set up,
um, automatic payments if you can,
or have that calendar in your phone that
you plug everything in and then you, you know, make your payments
on the day. I tend to like to be more involved
(15:18):
in my finances. So I will go in and make that
payment because I feel like that makes it click for me. I'm like,
okay, great, I made that payment. We're good.
Um, um, also, because sometimes you just want to make
more, you want to pay more if you can. So that's
another great way to, you know, reduce how much
you owe on a loan that much faster if you can
make extra payments. Great.
(15:40):
The second factor that impacts your credit, the second biggest
factor impacting your credit is your credit utilization. So how
much of your available credit are you using? Um,
each month? Now, this is particular to your credit cards.
So you have a set credit limit and
you get to charge, you get to determine how much you're going to charge
each month and how much you're going to pay off. Are you
(16:00):
carrying debt month to month? That gets reported to the
credit bureaus. How much of your available credit are
you using? So if you're using more
than 30% of your available credit,
then you'll start to see a little bit of a hit to
your credit score. A lot of people say
30% is that number that you should aim for. We
actually, we tell people, if you can pay it off, pay it off because you
(16:23):
don't want to carry debt over because you're going to pay interest
on that, those amounts that you're carrying over, right? So who
wants to pay extra on money that they're carrying over?
Additionally, if you can't pay it off in full, if you can keep
that usage at, uh, 10% or lower, that would
be even more beneficial to your credit score.
So your payment history and your credit utilization
(16:43):
to this biggest factors, typically that's about
65% of your credit score. Then you have
your credit mix. So how, how many
different types of accounts do you have? Do you have credit cards? Do
you have loans? How are you managing both?
Um, so that gets factored in your
age of your credit. So how long have you been
(17:04):
using credit that gets factored in? Um, a lot of
people, you know, if they just get started using credit, they want to see that
800 credit score right away. Remember, your,
your credit, um, report is
your history of your credit usage. So credit takes time to
build. Give yourself that time.
And then, uh, the last factor is new
credit. So are you applying for new
(17:26):
credit? Um, if, when you, every time you Apply for a form
of credit, then that will create a hard
inquiry in your credit report. So those get recorded in your
credit report. And that just lets, uh, your
lenders know or potential lenders know, like, hey, this person is
actively seeking out credit right now.
Is everything okay? You know, um,
are they over leveraging themselves with credit? So
(17:49):
it's just, it'it's a very minor impact on
your credit report. The least impactful factor,
um, it counts for, I think,
10%. Um, so those other
factors you really want to pay attention to are
your payment history and your credit utilization.
>> Anthony (18:06):
And it's awesome that you even found a
job with such, you know, while you're building
your credit at one of the credit bureaus, which is pretty
cool. Um, um, but also
it's interesting that they complain to you.
Well, they put their frustrations out there
without saying, like, hey, maybe us as
(18:27):
parents could have at least taken some time
out to explain to you what is
to deal with other finances or even credit in
general. So do you have any kids
now?
>> Christina Roman (18:39):
I do, I do. I have one son. He's five years
old. And yeah, these are things
that we talk about with my son. I talk about
budgeting. There's so many things in life and this is why
I think it's really common that, um,
especially in minority cultures, we're told,
get your education, get a good job.
>> Anthony (18:59):
Yep.
>> Christina Roman (19:00):
Then what? Then what? Okay, I have a, I have a good job now. I have
all this money. Okay, let me go shopping, let me buy the latest
car. You know, you see this with a lot of people that end up having money
really fast. Then they're like, oh, I have this
money, I can spend it. They don't realize
that they can invest in themselves. They can. They don't
realize that taking on too much debt over leverages
(19:20):
himself, you know, and so, um,
having those table conversations are so
important. Talking about money, talking about a budget. I
talked to my son frequently about, like, hey,
that's not in our budget right now. You know, he always wants me to buy him a
toy that's not in our budget right now. And
I set up a system for him to start to earn stars
(19:41):
so that he can earn money. And that way
if he wants something, he can buy it. Now I'll
take him to Target. And I say, okay, you've got 10 bucks. You can
buy a 10$10 item, or you could buy something
cheaper and save a little bit, um, for
maybe your next trip. So the next time we come, you have a little bit more
to spend or you can just save it and spend
(20:02):
it somewhere else, you know, so we do talk to
him about that. But that is my
goal is to set him up so that he understands
how credit works. And so I also have an 11,
a brother who's 11 years younger than me. So
when he entered um, um, the age where he could start using
credit, I talked to him about making sure that you don't
(20:22):
over leverage yourself with credit, that you don't take on debt,
that you pay it off. I talked to him about opening
401k because this is all information
that was not shared with me. It was like, oh, yeah,
you should do it, but why should I do it, right? I
didn't start to invest in my 401k until my
30s. I lost out on all those, those
years where I, I could have been accumulating interest
(20:44):
on a retirement account. So when my brother who started
working his company offered him a 401k, I said, Invest
in your 401k now. Okay? I want you to be set
up better than I was. So those
are conversations that I have with my brother, with
my cousins, with anybody that will listen
to hopefully get them set up for their
(21:05):
financial future. This Christmas, I actuallyught bought my
cousin who had m been complaining that she didn't know
how to manage money. I bought her uh,
financial books for Christmas. So that way. Or financial
literacy books for Christmas. So that
way. Yeah, because I want my
family, you know, to rise to, to
(21:25):
make the right choices with their money.
>> Anthony (21:28):
And that's really good that they at least approached
you. But I guess obviously you got
the, the big brand behind you. It was like, obviously I'm
talking about here.
Uh, but can you go back and talk about
the star system a little bit? How does your child
actually earn those stars?
>> Christina Roman (21:45):
Yeah, so, um, um, if he.
So every day at school he earns colored
dots. So green for he had good
behavior, yellow for I. Hey. We had to give him a
few instructions. Red is like, whoa. He
really was not listening. And so he,
he earned a red star, um,
for the green dots, he'll get a star. He
(22:08):
has to earn stars for several things. He has to brush
his teeth, he has to get himself dressed. He has to
get the green dot. He's got to say his prayers. At the end of the
night. He has an option to do piano
lessons. Um, we have, we bought a keyboard
so that he could set up YouTube and we
do a piano less on YouTube. Only five minutes. That's all I asked
for. You know, and then there's other Extra things
(22:31):
that he could do to earn stars. So we have a dog. If
he feeds the dog without being asked
then he can earn a star. If he,
if um, I asked him to let Ramy out
to use a restroom and he lets him back in,
he could earn a star that way. So there's different ways that he can
earn stars. Um, the one that we're having a little
(22:51):
bit of a harder time with is cleaning the room.
>> Anthony (22:53):
Ok.
>> Christina Roman (22:54):
In that.
>> Anthony (22:56):
So does each like star count to like a dollar amount
or is it just kind of like.
>> Christina Roman (23:02):
So uh, it varies. Honestly. We will tell
him we give him a target. So the first time
that he did it we told him you could earn a ten dollar prize. And I said
you're not every week andna earn a ten dollar prize. I said some
days it'll just be a five dollar but so it's not
a set amount that we have. But I don't want to
go over like $. I think
(23:22):
that's too much for a five year old.
>> Anthony (23:24):
Okay, well mean, he sound like you're making bank over
there. So.
>> Christina Roman (23:28):
Yeah. And he does it.
What was interesting to me is he's really incentivized by
that. And he'll go to the refrigerator. Soon as he feeds the
dog he'll go and he'll put his star, it's a magnetic star
system. And he'll put a star next to the right one. And
then if he sees uh, like he didn't do his piano lessons
at all this week so he's got no stars there but he has
(23:48):
to complete it all for five days. So there's
like six categories that he has to complete. Otherwise he doesn't earn it.
He gets nothing.
>> Anthony (23:56):
Oh he don't get not like not one. So
he can do everything right and not do us piano lessons
all the way through. So he doesn't get not one get it?
>> Christina Roman (24:05):
Nope. That's. That's the rul.
You have to complete the whole thing. Uh, but that's where the extra
stars come in because say he didn't do his piano lesson but he opted to
feed the dog. Those can take the place
less. Yes. Yeah. So that's where extra
stars kind of come into play. If he doesn't do any of that,
then no, he doesn't get anything.
>> Anthony (24:25):
That is smart.
Well I wanted to go back to that because for some people who are just
have young children and just trying to figure out how to
create a system for that child and obviously everybody
does it a little differently. I'm just curious on how you all
do it with your family?
>> Christina Roman (24:40):
Um, yeah.
>> Anthony (24:41):
Yeah. So now that you guys are
like doing well, Everybody's at the
800 mark and I. All that fun stuff,
like looking back,
what is it? What is the one of those habits that you
feel as though that you can actually just say, you
know what? This money habit should just go to trash. I don't want to say it
anymore. I don't need this in my life
(25:03):
anymore.
>> Christina Roman (25:05):
The money habit that should go in the trash
is impulse spending. Honestly,
it's, um, I noticed so that this is one of the things I did
this year was I, I,
um, look through my
spending to see, okay, where is my
money going? Because again, you always need to
check your spending. You always need to kind of
(25:27):
recalibrate, right? Um, sometimes you get
comfortable, you're managing money fine.
Your, um, your
credits looking good. So you kind of just go through
life. You're like, well, I'MAKE I'm paying my bills on time,
you know, um, I'm comfortable.
But just taking that extra time
to review your spending can actually really show
(25:50):
you just where all of your money is going. And
that was really eye opening for me. That's something I did in January
was I sat down and I looked at, okay, where's our, all of our money going?
And I realized our money is going to eating out
and our, uh, money is going to Amazon.
Impulse spending. You know, I have the app on my
phone, I get the package the next day. So I'm like,
(26:10):
oh, I didn't know I always needed,
um, you know, this, this thing that I, that I
saw on social media. And so I see it on social
media, I go on the app and I buy it and then boom, it's at
my house eight hours later, it's at my house the very next
day. And so I said, okay,
well we're gonna stop that. And
(26:30):
so I told my husband, we're making our meals at home,
we're going toa eat out once a week. Um,
and no more
impulse spending. If I'm going to buy something on Amazon,
on Amazon, or on an app on my phone,
it has a purpose behind it. There was a plan for it,
there's a reason why I wanted it. But if I find
(26:51):
myself looking at social media and saying,
oh, that's a cool gadget, I need that. No,
I don't make that purchase. I'm trying to be really
intentional with my spending. And I feel like
that's really, actually saved us quite a bit of
money, is bringing to mind to
myself and to my Husband. Hey, we're spending a lot of
(27:11):
money without really thinking about it.
If we're a little bit more intentional with our money, we actually
save more. And it's been really good the
last couple of months. I've. We've seen a
change in just how we're able to manage our
finances.
>> Anthony (27:26):
That is amazing. Um, um, to look at the impulse
buy, but actually have it with a purpose now, so I'll take it. You
only order from Amazon once a month?
>> Christina Roman (27:35):
Um, no. So, like, when I say with the purpose.
So we're having a, um, like a tomorra
Gentine's event. Right. And so, um,
my mom said, you're in charge of like, some of the decor items. So
I went and I specifically looked at,
okay, what is a decor item that I'm going to bring? And I
purchased just exactly what I wanted to bring. And then
(27:55):
that's it. Um, so like, that's
what I mean by being intentional. But I'm not
just like looking online and seeing like, oh, that's a cool
yadget. I need that. Or hey, I like that shirt. I want that.
I don't need that right now. If it wasn't in my
closet. And one of the things that I noticed, and my mom
just did this today, I was talking on the phone to her. So my
(28:15):
mom, um, for holidays or
any events, she always bought us new clothing.
We always had a new shirt to wear. We always had. I always had a
new dress to wear, you know, for every event that
happened. And so we have a
wedding shower coming up. And she said, oh, what are you going
to get to wear? And I said, oh, no, Mom, I'm shopping my
closet because I have dresses in my
(28:38):
closet. But that is a habit that's been
ingrained in me all my life. My mom just always, for every
holiday, for every event, bought us new clothing. And
so I'm saying I've got
clothing, I have dresses. I've bought them for every event leading up
to this, you know, so I can find something
in my closet to wear.
>> Anthony (28:57):
That's interesting because one of the things, like my mom
used to do the same thing when I was younger, but it was only
because the other kids in the neighborhood were getting it.
So it's almost like the environment was feeding that
particular impulse. Buying and purchasing. Instead of just
saying like, hey, nobody's going to see or
even notice that this is new or not, just iron it, wash
(29:17):
it, use it.
>> Christina Roman (29:19):
U. Um, yeah.
>> Anthony (29:20):
So how important is the environment when
it comes to understanding and staying to your
budget to You.
>> Christina Roman (29:29):
The environment is everything. Honestly,
um, within my
household, we have built a system.
Right. But when you go externally,
there's a lot of external pressures, especially
when, like, I'm from a Hispanic
family that is pretty big. We get together
all the time. And when we get together, it's a
(29:51):
birthday, it's, you know, an anniversary celebration,
or if you're not buying gift, you're bringing food. Right.
So you're buying stuff to make food for a lot of people.
And so, um, Josh and I
talked about how we need to set boundaries also. I
think there's a lot of expectation that, um,
um, you're always available, that
(30:12):
you're always going to, um,
um, be able to participate in.
In a ton of events or, you know,
um, um, show up on a whim.
You get invited to like, Sunday dinner or whatever,
but setting the expectation of like, yeah, we can be there,
but we're not going to purchase
anything or we're not going to bring anything
(30:34):
because it wasn't in the budget, you know, if you want us
to plan ahead for something, great. But we,
we need to be intentional about communicating that because that's
also where I realized we can spend a lot of money on our
family.
>> Anthony (30:46):
Yeah.
Um, and coming to back to the parents side of the
house, um, you talked a little bit
about how they impacted you early on.
How is now in your position or where you at
now impacting their lives?
>> Christina Roman (31:03):
U. Um, I think we're a lot more open
with talking about money. We actually have
a lot more conversations about money. Um, my
brother, he's been really good
about setting boundaries with them, with my parents
and letting even, you know. You know, he
moved about 15 minutes away and so
(31:24):
he. I was talking to him on the phone the other day and I said, hey, I miss you. I
haven't seen you in a while. He said, yeah, you know, right now things
are tight and so I can't come down all the time.
M. But, you know, let's set a date so that we can
get together. So these are conversations that are happening and
we understand that. Okay. You know, this
is just where we are. We're all at different places in our life. But I'm happy
(31:44):
that he's prioritizing his budget and
that he knows that he doesn't want to overextend himself.
You know, um, my
dad also. It's interesting. My dad's been talking a lot more
about investing and, you know, talking about the
importance of investing. And so he
doesn't invest a lot. He's always said, I want to figure out
how to invest and I want to figure out how to invest. I don't
(32:07):
really know how to invest in. To be perfectly honest, I'm not investing much
aside from my 401k and maybe I think I
own one, um,
like stock on, on Robinhood, you
know. Um, so I want to really
boost my investing knowledge this year. That's a goal that
I've set for myself. So my dad, he said, hey, when
(32:27):
you learn something, please share with me because I want to
learn too. I want to invest too. So that's
something that, that is new and it's exciting and I'm glad that
we're having these conversations too.
>> Anthony (32:39):
That is really good. There's a book that I usually
give or recommend, shall I say, to a lot of people who
are just getting into investing in.
The book is called the Simple Path to Wealth by J.L.
collins. And the reason why, because he
wrote the book for his daughter who wouldn't listen to him when he was trying to tell
her about investing. So he was like,
(32:59):
well, here you go. Whenever you decide to read
it, it's here for you. But it's really
simple. Um, and I usually give that book away for
gifts as well for like the holidays.
So, you know, if you guys on my live show, I do
give away books around the holiday season. So make sure
you'all sign up. Uh, but that's just
one of the books is just a suggestion if you.
>> Christina Roman (33:20):
Yeah, thank you.
>> Anthony (33:22):
Yeah.
Um, so we're going to go into the futures just a little bit
here, um, which is talking about,
you know, what areas that you plan on
focusing on for yourself, um, um, or even in
your career.
>> Christina Roman (33:37):
Yeah, I think for
myself. Um, um, I mentioned
investing. That's something that I really want to
research more. U. Um, that's a goal of mine. I
just recently actually up the
amount that I'm putting into my 401k
and um, so that way I can really start to
maximize it. But learning how
(34:00):
to grow my money is where I'm at right now. And
then also, you know, uh,
looking into high yield savings accounts.
I've known about these. I'm in this industry. I've known about
these for so many years. But uh, to be perfectly honest, I
haven't taken the actions there
to even just earn a little bit of money on,
(34:20):
you know, my savings. Why not? So that's something
that I'm looking into. U. Um,
what else am I looking into
for my own future?
Yeah, right now I think it's really investing and
growing my wealth and then also investing for my
(34:41):
son. That's another thing that I contacted um,
my, my 401k company and I said I
want to open an account for my son because I really want to set him
up for success. He has already uh, a
college savings plan so we did that several years
ago. So we put money into that account and
for Christmas, you know, I have family members that uh,
(35:02):
put into that account. But I want to open up an
investment account for him as well so that way I
can, you know, have something for him when
he gets ready to enter adulthood, you
know.
>> Anthony (35:14):
Yeah, that's really good. Uh, uh, especially starting them
off young, you know, things that you wish your parents would have done
for you. It's good that you'like you know what I'm doing
as soon as I get a Social Security number. We
yeah, that makes sense.
Now when it comes to adding your child owner,
the authorized user. Mhm. I know
(35:34):
it changes from child to child,
but is it a good thing to do that?
>> Christina Roman (35:40):
Yeah, it can be a good thing. Um, and
honestly the good thing about having an authorized user
or having your child as an authorized users, you get to
determine u, um, if they're going to have
access to a credit card to that account that
you're going to be signing them as an authorized user for. You get to
determine if they're going toa even be able to use it. Um,
I, I know people that have added their children as authorized
(36:02):
users but they never get to touch a card. They
just benefit from their credit history.
Now does that teach them how to use
credit? Maybe a better option would be to give
them the card and say this is your
limit and this uh, and this is what
I expect you to pay back. You know, you can only charge
when you have the amount to pay back. But that has
(36:25):
to be coordinated between the two of you because
you are the one, the parent is the one that's legally
responsible for what's charged on their cards.
So even if they call and say well my son
charged a thousand dollar, you know, computer on
my charge, that wasn't me, there's nothing that they can do,
they're gonna have to pay it back. You know, so
(36:45):
that's a contract that you need to develop with your child,
that's a conversation you need to have with your child but
still you as the parent, ah, are responsible for what's owed on the
account.
>> Anthony (36:55):
That makes sense.
>> Christina Roman (36:56):
And then, sorry, one more thing there. You just want to make
sure that when you add the child as an authorized user that they
do report it to the credit bureau. So if you're
asking your, your creditor, okay, do I, uh,
if I had my child, is that going to be reported to the
bureaus? And they say yes, then that's going to help them to build
credit.
>> Anthony (37:14):
Oh, I didn't even know that they had that option to
not send it over.
>> Christina Roman (37:20):
It depends on the lender, honestly.
>> Anthony (37:22):
Okay. And since you just rece received the
information when it comes to a credit dispute,
because this is the biggest thing, uh, uh,
what is the best way to do it? Is it to go through the
lender or talk to you guys directly?
>> Christina Roman (37:37):
If you're doing a credit dispute, you want to go to
your credit report and you.
So you can contact the lender and say,
you know, hey, you made a mistake on my credit report.
But I think it might be, I think it's more
beneficial if you go through your credit report. On
every credit report, there's dispute instructions. You follow those
instructions. If you're doing it online, typically it's as easy as clicking the
(38:00):
button next to the item that you want to dispute.
You explain in detail why
you, uh, feel as though what's been reported is incorrect.
And then if you can upload any supporting
documents that can help us. When we're going to your lender
on your behalf and saying, this consumer says that this
information is inc. Torrect, here's the supporting documents.
(38:21):
Please review this and let us know,
um, the results of your findings. Um,
they have, ah, 30 to 45 days to let
us know. Often it happens even faster.
We'll know within a couple of days the results of that
dispute.
>> Anthony (38:36):
That's amazing. Is there any laws that we can kind
of tack on to say, like, hey,
well, we didn't sign up for this particular
thing. There was no signature with this new
lender. So, like, if it's going through, like, collections
for that point, is there something that we can
go.
>> Christina Roman (38:54):
If you didn't sign up for it, then that's likely
fraud. So you want to go through the fraud process.
So, um, you know, contacting
the lender, letting them know I was not the person that opened that
account, that's not even my signature on it. And then
you go through the process. You may have to file a police
report, but all of that information backs up your
(39:14):
claim that that was not you. So
you want to look into the steps for reporting fraud
in that case. Got, um, it.
And if at the end of the dispute process
you determine, you know what, we did not come to an
agreement here, I'm showing Proof that I paid,
they're saying that I didn't pay. You can put a statement of
(39:35):
dispute that gets added to your credit report, letting
them, letting you explain your situation. The only thing
about a statement of dispute is that,
um, the information will fall off
typically after seven years. So if
at that point it's probably a good time to, to
go on and remove that statement of dispute, otherwise
it's going to stay there and lenders are going to wonder, what is this
(39:58):
even for?
>> Anthony (39:59):
That makes sense.
All right, now this question came
from the credit chat that I really wanted to ask
you, uh, because I thought this was
interesting, which is how can
a credit history impact the ability to
build wealth and what steps that individuals
can take to improve their financial standing?
>> Christina Roman (40:20):
Yeah, so we, Sorry.
So anytime we talk about credit, we always emphasize
the fact that credit is the financial tool
and what cred your credit
history does is your credit history, if managed well, when
you go to apply for loans in the future,
um, um, your credit history is what that
(40:40):
lender is going to use to determine
the interest rate that you're going to qualify for. Right? That's notn.
It's not going to be the sole factor in determining if you
get, ah, approved for a loan. A lot of times,
again, they'll take into account, um,
your savings, your income, your
job, um, how long you've been at your job, your stability,
(41:01):
things like that. So those are things that they'll factor in. But
your credit history specifically will impact
the interest with which, uh, you'll qualify for
a loan. Right? The better your credit score, the lower the interest
rate. The lower the interest rate, the more you're going to save
over the life of your loan. So when you have
a goal in mind, like purchasing a home,
(41:22):
the better your credit history and your credit
score, the better that interest rate is going to be.
That's going to help you to qualify, that's going to help you to save
money. It could, that, that interest rate could be the
difference of 10 to, uh, thousands to
tens of thousands of dollars on a loan,
you know, maybe even a hundred thousand. But
(41:42):
that's why we always say before you're going to make a major
purchase, check your credit report three to six months in
advance to determine if there's anything that
you need to change. If there's something that looks, um,
off on your credit report, you have that time
to, uh, bring your debt down. You know,
that's one of the quickest ways that you're going to impact your credit score.
So, okay, I want to, I Want to apply for a
(42:04):
home? I need to reduce my debt. Let me, you know,
take the steps to do that so that way you
can qualify for the best possible interest rates. That's why we say it
does matter when you're trying to build wealth. We know
that home ownership is one of the. The best
ways to build wealth. Um, in the
United States, you have that home, you have that
(42:24):
equity. So the better you manage your
credit, then the better you're going to be able to get
that process rolling.
>> Anthony (42:32):
Thank you so much for that info.
Uh, is there anything that you want to leave that
the person that's listened to this right now, before we dive
into the final four questions?
>> Christina Roman (42:44):
Yeah, I just want you to be
curious about your credit. Um, um.
Check your credit score. A lot of Check your credit
report and your credit score. Um, um, A lot of people
think that checking their credit report is going to negatively
impact their credit. That's not true. I was actually sitting with
my husband while he was getting his hair cut in a
(43:05):
barber shop, and I remember hearing them have this
conversation, say, don't check your credit report. You'renna you're gon
toa hurt your. Your credit score. Only check it, like,
when you absolutely have to. And, and I had to interject
because, no, that is not true. And I don't want
that myth to continue. Check your credit
report as often as you want. You can check your credit report
(43:25):
weekly at annual credit report.go. um,
annual creditport.com from
Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Those are the
three major credit bureaus. So you can check it for, uh,
there for free. Weekly, you can get your
FICO score and your Experian credit report from
experian.com. um, and
remember, it's the information that's in your credit report that's
(43:47):
informing your credit score. So you want to make
sure that you know the information that's being
reported about you to your lenders. So be
curious with your credit.
>> Anthony (43:58):
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. So you're
ready for the final four?
>> Christina Roman (44:02):
Yes.
>> Anthony (44:03):
Alghty
number one, what does wealth mean to
you?
>> Christina Roman (44:17):
Wealth means freedom.
To me, that it means
having the freedom to live
an authentic life. Live life the way that I want
to live it, be the person that I want to be.
I often feel like when I'm
most financially strapped, I'm stressed
(44:37):
out. I'm, um, um,
um, unhappy.
I tend to put the things that give me joy
aside. And wealth, to me
means having the freedom to do all the
things that I love and
um, um,
joy and
(44:59):
yeah, that's what, that's what wealth means to me.
Freedom.
>> Anthony (45:03):
Number two, what was your
worst money mistake?
>> Christina Roman (45:09):
My worst money mistake
was opening a credit card without
understanding how it worked. Um um.
I highly encourage you if you're going to use the
financial tool, understand how it works, read the terms and
conditions and talk to
your family members about
(45:29):
these tools as well. Share the knowledge
that's so important.
>> Anthony (45:35):
Number three, is there a book that inspired
you U uh, your journey or
change your perspective?
>> Christina Roman (45:45):
It's not a financial book. I will say that
um, I when I was was just learning about money, I
would say I was. It was podcasts more than anything
that, that helped me to kind of
navigate. I remember I listened frequently to like
Rait Sety. I listened to um, Stacking
Benjamin'aaron um Lowry
wrote a great book Broke Millennial. Those were all great
(46:07):
financial books. But a book that truly
changed my life. God can I say to I
have two that are really o say but
okay, the book that the books that changed my
life for the better or the for agreements.
Um um. I love that book so much.
I It's just that book is truly
freeing about letting go of
(46:30):
judgments. U um,
it's such a fantastic book. And the other book that
I love that I still reference to this day, I read it I think two
years ago. U um, Atomic Habits.
That's a book that, that
made me take action right away.
>> Anthony (46:47):
Yeah.
>> Christina Roman (46:47):
And it made it so simple and it's a the
be just 1% better every day. That's
something that I live by.
>> Anthony (46:55):
Love it. It's such a great book.
Yeah, I watch what that one.
>> Christina Roman (47:00):
I still make my bed. I made my bed this morning. You
know, like. Yeah, it's things that that just
little things that, that I live by.
>> Anthony (47:10):
Number four, what is your favorite dish to
make?
>> Christina Roman (47:15):
My favorite dish to make
is um. Um. I
love breakfast. Breakfast is my favorite item or uh,
my favorite meal of the of the day. But
my favorite dish is shakshuka. It's
like a, it's a tomato dish
uh, with eggs and it's
so savory and good and I eat it with a piece
(47:38):
of I'll havem um,
either nonaan or I'll have it with sourdough
bread. But it just has really
nice spice flavors. It's a really
um, robust
flavor profile and
um, it's really good.
>> Anthony (47:57):
Sounds like a forty dollar dish to me.
>> Christina Roman (47:59):
No, it'it's uh, actually not. Actually not. It's made with
tomatoes, onions, a Ton of
spices and eggs. Like you could just put
two eggs in. You make a little pocket for them. I guess the egg
part is the right.
But yeah, but yeah. And I
cheat a little bit. I honestly use stew tomatoes,
(48:20):
um, in my, in my cabinet. But
it's so good at the um, the
flavor profile is wonderful.
>> Anthony (48:28):
We won't tell anybody.
>> Christina Roman (48:29):
So.
>> Anthony (48:32):
Uh, the last question of the show, which is where could people
find out more about you?
>> Christina Roman (48:37):
Yeah, um, first. Well, I hope you go
toian.com if you have credit questions.
If you want to learn about credit, uh, check out
our Askian blog and then you could find
me on X. Every Wednesday at Ah, 3:00
Pacific, we host a credit chat. It's been going
since 2012. Every week we touch on a
(48:57):
different personal finance topic that matters to um,
um, everyone. We touch on life, um,
financial topics. We talk m this,
uh, I think this next week we're going to talk about
taxes. But yeah, so whatever topic is timely,
we're usually talking about it on X. So you can
find me there. I'm tweeting at or I'm
xing ha. What is it now? Um, Tina,
(49:20):
underscore Ro and you can find
me on LinkedIn at. Ah, Christina Roman.
Um, um, yeah, come in and message
me, chat with me. I'm always happy to answer
any questions, general questions you can you have about
credit. I can't give specific advice but, um, I'm
always happy to answer general questions about credit.
>> Anthony (49:41):
And they also have a podcast called
Credit Chat check out.
>> Christina Roman (49:45):
Yes. And Anthony was just our guests on that
wonderful podcast. I had so much fun talking to you on
that episode and I'm glad that because of that I get to be
here talking with you again.
>> Anthony (49:56):
I appreciate it. We got to dive in a little bit more, which is
great.
>> Christina Roman (49:59):
Yeah.
>> Anthony (50:00):
So I appreciate your time. Um,
and for you who are listening right now that you've made it
this far, I just really want to let you know that you have what it
takes to go to the next level. Just be
sure to ask. You
never know what somebody might know and they might be
able to be able to guide you to that next level that where you
(50:20):
want to be, um, with your credit. And I wish
that you achieve the
level that you need to order to get that
interest rate that you want because you have the good credit and by
listening to this episode. So if anything,
you'all be safe. Re out. Peace.
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