Executive Speaker on Personal Finances

On Thursday evening we had a guest speaker from Regions Bank on credit. He explained to us the different ways of forming credit and how easy it is to ruin your credit if you’re not careful. He lectured on how your credit score determines many things, such as interest rates, upfront fees, the kind of house you own, and the cars you drive. I think this lecture was very insightful. The guest speaker cleared up a lot of points that I was unclear about. For example, I had always thought it would hurt your credit to own many credit cards. However, the opposite is true, in reality if you have a couple credit cards with available balances and never use them, then that is how you build credit. All you have to do to maintain the credit card open is make a minimal purchase every now and then, then pay off the balance. As long as you pay your credit cards on time and do not spend over a third of your available balance, you maintain a good credit score. A credit score follows you for the rest of your life, if you ruin your credit it’s really hard to start over and get it high again. Therefore, the best solution is to keep your credit score high and constantly be checking it. There are websites like freecreditreport.com available to check your credit score and to prevent identity theft.

When we met with our mentors after the lecture, we discussed any questions we may have had. We also discussed what we learned and the things we already knew about credit. Many people in my group were surprised to learn that having many credit cards but not using them would actually better your credit score, rather than hurt it. I found a website that is designed to help college students manage their money; it’s called The Simple Dollar.