[00:02:22] Josh DeTar: Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking

[00:02:24] Josh: Podcast. I have two guests today, and my guests are Christina Roman, the consumer education and Advocacy Manager at Experian and Latrice Wells, the Assistant Vice President of Career Planning and Development at Fisk University. I even told these ladies a minute ago, this might have been the best podcast I could have ever scheduled for a Friday morning because it’s gonna be so easy for me. I probably won’t even have to talk at all. The energy and enthusiasm for life, for helping others and for making an impact. These two have is literally just awe inspiring La Theresa’s mantra word is impact. She wants to make an impact and leave a lasting and positive mark on the world. We’re all given a unique set of circumstances and starting places in life. And some are better than others. How can we help create the same level of opportunity for everyone we come in contact with and how can we help set people up for success and how can we pay it forward? That’s what Latrice gets excited about, being able to offer to people. Now, fun fact, I said, I bet you were the girl in Girl Scouts that would somehow have convinced me to buy like $300 in Girl Scout cookies, to which she quickly laughed and said, yep, that was me. Christina’s family, while having done a good job setting her up for success in life, always wanted to set her up, not just for success, but also to be able to be a better person and to do more than even they did. And that turned into a lifelong passion for also finding creative ways to help everyone she comes in contact with to be better and to have more opportunity than they been or had. Christina’s faith and her family are really what give her the foundation, the drive, and the energy to do all of this stuff and to actually be able to make positive impacts in the community. Now, both of these ladies are also huge sports fanatics. Christina spends most weekends chasing her five-year-old and her husband and dad since they’re the coaches, uh, as the team mom of their baseball team. And Latrice, whose husband played football in college, says, sports and competition and being in the excitement and the thick of it are just a part of life. And you’re gonna see this comradery, team spirit, and desire to see everyone succeed really come through today. So ladies, thank you so much for joining me and welcome to the podcast.

[00:04:59] Christina Roman: Thank you for having us.

[00:05:01] Latreace Wells: Thanks.

[00:05:03] Josh: Christina, you said something that really stuck with me, as we were just kind of getting ready to start recording. And it actually started with, we were talking about Halloween

[00:05:13] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:14] Josh: and you were talking about how, much you love just being able to watch the kids walk by your house on the ring camera and watch ’em, like talk to your decorations and get all excited about it. and kind of the, the comment that you made was, you know, for you it was less about the decorations and making your house look cool. It was about this thought process of actually like creating cool core childhood memories for, your family and the kids in your neighborhood. And I thought that was such a fitting way to kind of start the thought process of what we wanna talk about in today’s podcast, which is we’re really just trying to set the next generation. Positively.

[00:05:56] Josh: Right. And I think about that as a parent myself. Like I want my children to grow up with these amazing core memories of the time their family spent together. And, at the same time, I wanna set ’em up for success. Right. And kind of Latrice what you had alluded to, it’s like we all have different starting points. And as selfish as it may sound, I really want my kids to have a good starting point. Like that is something that’s important to me. But at the same time, even if it’s not our kids, how can we set others up for a great starting point, even if that starting point doesn’t start until 30 or 40? And so that’s really the, the purpose of today’s conversation.

[00:06:33] Josh: So, you know, Christina, I’d love if you would kind of just expand a little bit maybe on what that meant to you when you were talking about just kind of creating these core memories and kind of setting people up for success.

[00:06:44] Christina: Yeah, I think, it’s always been for me, one thing my dad always taught me is the importance of giving back to your community. And we, so growing up, my mom. She would decorate our house and you know, it looked really, really cool and sweet. She did it for every holiday though, you know, Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, I always felt like that was my favorite time of year ’cause everything was so festive.

[00:07:06] Christina: Even outside in the city, you know, they put up lights on a lot of the buildings and those are memories that I have. And so that’s something I carried with me was, the importance of giving back to the community however you can. And sometimes that’s just decorating your house and, you know, having, creating an experience so that when families are going on their walks, they have something exciting that they’re looking forward to.

[00:07:28] Christina: You know, we know that they’re gonna make a trip up our block ’cause they see our, nightmare before Christmas decorations from the corner. So the kids are like, I wanna go that way. And so that’s that lasting memory. But carrying that throughout, everything that I do, you know, the work that I get to do as a consumer education advocacy manager, making sure that.

[00:07:47] Christina: The younger generation, every generation really has access to financial knowledge and education that can help them to enter the, credit ecosystem and use it as the tool that it’s meant to be used as, so that they can achieve their overall goals and then, you know, hopefully then begin that life of, of creating lasting memories for themselves, for their families, and get set off on that right foot right.

[00:08:15] Christina: And I, I love that I get to do this. Experian is all about financial power for all and empowering, the community. And so this is a really neat way that I get to, make my little stamp and hopefully change people’s lives for the better.

[00:08:31] Josh: I want to come back to, how you kind of got started in doing the social media for Experian. ’cause I think that’s a super interesting story. But before we do Latrice kind of, in that same vein you were talking about, you know, we all have different starting points in life. And at the end of the day, if we, do things right, we should give everybody at least an equal opportunity of an outcome, right? But sometimes it’s a lot harder depending on that starting point. And sometimes that starting point starts, like I said, even later in life, right? Like maybe you had a good starting point, but then something else happened and brought you back to a different starting point. And that’s just kind of the evolution of, our lives as humans. And that’s something that you become really passionate about is, yes. Even, trying to impact people in the early days. And I think that’s how you got connected with Christina and stuff. But at the same time, like working with the university, I mean, you’re meeting people well into their quote unquote starting point of life. So how do you kind of think about what it means to be able to like, create good positive memories and create good positive like habits for people at that stage?

[00:09:46] Latreace: So one thing about being in my office is I’m in career planning development, right? And we think about it just from a standpoint of careers, but it also is about the knowledge that you build and the access that you have, and even more the exposure. So in my office, about eight years ago, I had an opportunity to start this great program that’s transformed our students’ lives, and that is the home for USA created the Center for Financial Advancement, that is our CFA Scholars program. it started off with one student. Literally we had

[00:10:16] Latreace: several, but one student is the one that made the huge difference in terms of. People seeing that student and his success. Not only was he in the program, he graduated in four years, he went on and bought his first home

[00:10:29] Latreace: within two months of graduation and he is now the student director of the program.

[00:10:35] Latreace: So he literally is that story, that

[00:10:38] Latreace: model, that success, that example. But he also participated in all the activities in my office. and I started at fi nine years ago. This is my 10th academic season. And when I came into the role, I came from a nonprofit and a corporate space. So being in higher ed, you have an opportunity to connect with so many people from so many walks of lives,

[00:11:00] Latreace: right?

[00:11:01] Latreace: There’ve been so many places, different mindsets, and they see money differently.

[00:11:06] Latreace: You can have someone who comes from a background where they learned about money in middle school or high school, whereas you have someone who’s experiencing a, a credit score for the first time at 21. And to be honest with you, that’s actually too late. It’s actually too late.

[00:11:23] Latreace: We need our students to not start when they’re in college, but to start sooner. And I think that’s where the Experian piece comes in for us, because now you have access and exposure to these things that these students between 18 and 22 can see differently because

[00:11:39] Latreace: now they have access.

[00:11:40] Latreace: And if you’re a student who is from a different country who attends our university, you don’t even have to worry about credit scores, right? You get, you get over here and you’re thinking, whoa, a credit score. I can purchase these things. I can have access to this. Here’s information that’s gonna transform not only my life, but my family’s life, or my family’s lives.

[00:11:59] Latreace: So yes, that makes a huge difference. So for me, I, I’ve been put in a position, as you said, impact,

[00:12:06] Latreace: but to empower people, to help them see the possibilities through information, through access, and not only students. Faculty, staff, and alumni.

[00:12:18] Latreace: And if we are able to do that, then we are able to transform our communities. So I think that I’ve been given that, that opportunity, and I have to take it seriously because again, this is a difference maker for those students who go on into careers, right? They

[00:12:34] Latreace: have an internship in the summer, and the first thing I ask them is, do you have your budget? You’re a graduating senior. What does your budget look like? Because what happened your freshman year should not be the case your senior year. And if I knew then what I know now,

[00:12:48] Latreace: I’d be in a totally different place because of those hiccups, those mistakes, and those challenges. So I love the fact that I have, I’ve, I’ve been given an opportunity and it’s all about how I plan to use that opportunity to pay it forward.

[00:13:01] Josh: Well, isn’t that crazy? I mean, just thinking about, I know that’s one of the big topics that we wanted to really talk about was just, the huge gap that still exists in America in understanding what a credit score is, what it does, how it impacts you, how you impact it, et cetera. And, I thought it was interesting.

[00:13:20] Josh: I think I’ve actually, even brought this up once on a previous episode, but, one of the, Saturday traditions that my wife and I have had for years, even pre-kids and now even our kids are involved in, is we always walk. It’s about a two and a half mile round trip, walk to a little Dutch bros coffee spot by our house and we go get coffee and during the week we make it at home.

[00:13:44] Josh: And then that’s the special little treat. We walk there, we get a little exercise, a little fresh air, we get a coffee. So over a decade, you know, we’ve gotten to know and see the typically like high school and college age kids that work at the little coffee shop there. Right. And recently we were going through, and I don’t even remember how it came up. But I think I was getting ready to go on a trip and one of the girls asked like, what do you do? And I was like, oh, you know, I work in software for financial services. And she was like, oh yeah, that’s like a big black box for me. She’s like, I don’t even know like what a credit score is. And to your point, Latrice, that I was like, huge red flag to me. I was like, you’ve gotta be at least 17, 18, 19, somewhere in there. And that was my thought was, oh my gosh, it’s too late. Like, we gotta get to this girl. And then I went into full like nerd dad work mode and I’m like trying to educate this girl and she’s like, okay, I did not mean to open this conversation.

[00:14:38] Josh: I gotta get the coffee order for the next car, like go away,

[00:14:41] Josh: But then, on the flip side, what was interesting is I was just talking to, sorry sva, I’m gonna put you on Blast, our CEO the other day. And his daughter, is now just got accepted into law school at Boston University and He, I can’t remember what it was.

[00:14:58] Josh: They were doing something and it was like the first time they’d ever actually like checked Davida’s credit score and gone to do something with her. And she was like a high eight hundreds. And they were like, everybody was kind of confused and he was like, I mean, good, I’m, I’m, I’m glad, but like how, and mind you like, this is the CEO of our company who works in this industry. And he didn’t even realize this, but when they had put her as an authorized signer on their credit card forever ago, they’d been building credit

[00:15:28] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:29] Josh: Right. And so, I laughed. I told svo, I was like, dude, I have my kids. They’re, five and two if they’re authorized signers on my credit card.

[00:15:36] Josh: Why? Because they’re building credit for them. Right. But it’s like, if nobody tells you that, how would you know that?

[00:15:44] Josh: You know what I mean? And so you have two back to kinda what you were talking about, Latrice, like you have two very stark contrasts. Now we have SVAs daughter. Who knew nothing about credit, but she’s in the high eight hundreds and you have this girl who knew nothing about credit and she’s probably a significantly lower score.

[00:16:00] Josh: Right? And so literally just from that one aspect, they now have totally different starting

[00:16:06] Josh: points in their adult lives and things like the ability to buy their first home. Right? Which, that’s a whole nother conversation we’ll talk about. But,

[00:16:14] Christina: Yeah.

[00:16:15] Josh: but, so that kind of brings me to Christina. You know, when we first met and you were talking to me about how you got started doing the social media Experian, and, just kind of that journey of like, you learning for yourself.

[00:16:28] Josh: I, I don’t wanna ruin it. Like you gotta tell the story.

[00:16:31] Christina: Yeah, definitely. So, just a little bit of background about me is I actually got my degree in news editorial journalism. So when people find out that I’m in this role, they’re like, oh, what was your degree? It must have been, finance, something in that realm. And really, my, my degree is news editorial journalism.

[00:16:49] Christina: And, I believe firmly in transferable skills, you know, finding those skills that you’re, you do that, that work well for you, and then using them to navigate throughout your career. So for me, it was all about making connections and communications. So I utilized that, my joy of writing and making connections into a communications role that allowed me to do social.

[00:17:11] Christina: Media and newsletter marketing and, copywriting for, uh, an organization called the Red Hat Society. And this is where I met a group of fantastic driven women that, they were my age and we were working for an organization that serve primarily, 50 and above. Women and creating social circles.

[00:17:31] Christina: And, this group of women just, we would get together and we would talk about our goals. We would talk about, where do we see ourselves? And so it was, it was a ui ux person, it was a graphic designer. it was a marketing specialist and myself, and we would just talk about what our future could look like.

[00:17:47] Christina: And then one of them went on to work for Experian and she came back to me and she said, Hey, we’ve got a social media role open here. You do a fantastic job where you are right now. I’d like to put your resume in at Experian. And I was like, whoa, that’s like a giant company. I don’t know that they would be interested in me.

[00:18:06] Christina: And she said, well, sometimes, you know, if you refer a person, then. They more likely to look at that referral, which anybody that’s listening, if you’re younger, know that the ne the connections that you make at your current job, you never know where that’s gonna lead in your future. But she passed on my resume and then I got that first HR call and we were talking and about social media and, and what I firmly believe that social media humanizes the company, especially a company as big as Experian.

[00:18:36] Christina: And, so I got passed along in the process and when I went for the first interview, it was daunting. I was walking up to this huge campus, the biggest building I’ve ever, or the biggest company I’ve ever interviewed with. And I was scared. I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t know if, if this is like right for me, but, my future boss walked down to meet me and he was in jeans, converse, and like a a plaid button down shirt.

[00:18:59] Christina: And I’m pretty sure it’s the same thing he wears. Even to this day, like Mike is one of the greatest people, he’s so chill. And, he opened up our, our chat with You Want a coffee? So he walked me up to their coffee area and then he just asked me like, what’s your favorite food? What are you interested in?

[00:19:16] Christina: And that’s how our interview started. And I was like, oh my gosh, this company, this is really cool. This is really cool. ’cause it, it wasn’t just like, what do you do? Why do you do what you do? what difference have you made? It was like he wanted to get to know me as a person and then, I got the job and I was super grateful.

[00:19:32] Christina: And then he tasked me with creating credit education on social media. And I’ll never forget when I was going through the interview process and they did the credit check, I said, Hey. I know you’re a credit bureau, but I just want you to know, in my twenties I ruined my credit and I’ve been rebuilding ever since then.

[00:19:49] Christina: At the time that I got the job, I was in my thirties and so I, I said, is that gonna impact my ability to get the job? ’cause I really want this job. Like, please. And she said, don’t worry, I doubt it’ll have an impact. And in California, just fun fact, credit scores are, well, credit scores in general are not used.

[00:20:06] Christina: When they’re running job applications. They’re getting a truncated copy of your credit report. But in California, that can’t be used to turn a, an employee away. So, that’s also true in various other states. So I would look at that where, at whatever state you’re currently listening from. so that was what I had to tell the HR person.

[00:20:24] Christina: It was really uncomfortable for me to share that. So when my boss tasked me with creating credit education on social media, I told him. Mike, you know, I’m really excited to be here and I’m really excited to do social media, but I want you to know that I ruined my credit in my twenties. I don’t know that I’m the best person to be creating credit education for other people on social media, and he reassured me that.

[00:20:47] Christina: It was perfectly fine that I, that he thought actually, that made me a better candidate to be doing this because I have come from the, position of having to dig myself out of the trenches as far as credit, and I had already begun the financial learning. That I needed to do to begin to rebuild my credit.

[00:21:03] Christina: And so he told me, I’m gonna connect you with all of the resources that we have here, and then I want you to create credit education from those resources. And then he connected me with my current team, the consumer education and advocacy team. It was two people, rod Griffin and Jennifer White. And they went over all of the content that we were creating, and then we began to work together.

[00:21:23] Christina: And, that relationship was how I then jumped onto the consumer education and advocacy team because I loved the impact that we were having on social media. I loved when consumers commented and they said, Hey, because of this content, my credit score is now seven 50. And so I was like, yes, we’re actually making a difference.

[00:21:42] Christina: and that was the cool thing about being on social media, is you’re connecting directly with the community and you can hear from them. So they’re, they’re commenting right back to you, their feedback on your content. And I loved that. one of the things we did was we put my boss on, at the time, Periscope was really popular, so we put him on Periscope and we just sat him down and we said, let’s test this out.

[00:22:02] Christina: Let’s see if anybody asked you credit questions. And that was it. That was a wildly popular campaign for us. We would have hundreds of questions come in a half hour segment. And so I was in the background taking down all of the questions so that if Rod didn’t get to them, at least we could create content, based on those questions.

[00:22:19] Christina: So we know we didn’t have to guess what people wanted to learn. We actually had them right in, in the chat asking their burning credit questions. So, that was kind of how I ended up at Experian and got started in this role and how I, I ended up where I am now and why I’m super passionate about it.

[00:22:35] Josh: this is, I, I’ve brought this up a few times on the podcast. This is something that actually like, really and truly terrifies me about. kind of where we are headed in terms of financial education, especially for our young adults, is the amount of garbage that I see on social media.

[00:22:54] Josh: It’s terrifying. Like, and I was even reading an article recently about how a bunch of these young influencer kids, you know, you can, you can through like enterprise rent a car and they’re like fancy division. You can rent a Lamborghini,

[00:23:10] Josh: right? And it’s a couple hundred dollars. And maybe they only rent it for a couple of hours.

[00:23:16] Josh: They go drive it in front of somebody else’s house and then they shoot a bunch of content saying, if you follow me, if you listen to my advice, you can own a Lamborghini like me. You can live in a house like this, like me. I bought this at 22. None of it’s theirs. None of it’s real. And none of this advice is any good.

[00:23:34] Josh: Right? I mean, I watched one recently that was some, Instagram reel of some kid talking about, you know, how to do all these crazy trades with crypto and like it was his foolproof way to beat the system and all this. And I’m watching it. I’m like, that’s wrong. That’s illegal. That doesn’t actually work like that.

[00:23:55] Josh: I was like, this is terrifying.

[00:23:57] Christina: I see that myself on

[00:23:58] Josh: I bet.

[00:24:00] Christina: and we, we actually just did, a survey on financial misinformation on social media or just financial misinformation in general, and 94% of. Consumers are, are, are fearful about financial misinformation because, there’s so much out there and there’s no control over who’s sharing this information.

[00:24:20] Christina: and we found, I, I think it was, 43% of consumers had made a financial mistake based on that misinformation that they had received online. Some, sometimes it was $500 to a thousand dollars mistake. So like, that’s why we tried to be there. We tried to be that trusted resource that say, Hey, you’re hearing this from the bureau, you’re hearing this from the people that, that vetted what I was putting on social media had been with Experian already for 20 years.

[00:24:46] Christina: They had already been in the industry trying to provide financial education. So we were trying to kind of combat that with putting this information out there from a trusted resource.

[00:24:57] Josh: Yeah, and I think what you said I think is so important. Like that’s what’s scary is that there’s no vetting process.

[00:25:03] Josh: Like I could literally upload a video today of horrific financial advice and it could go viral and that’s it. And

[00:25:10] Josh: there’s no stopping it. There’s no policing it. Right? And Latrice, I’ve gotta imagine that has gotta be absolutely terrifyingly prevalent on the college campus, right?

[00:25:20] Josh: Like that is the perfect target demographic because you think about it too, right? If I’m sitting there like struggling thinking, oh my gosh, like I’m gonna have to take out another student loan. How’s this gonna work? I can’t pay my rent. And then all of a sudden I see some TikTok video that guarantees I can make 10 grand this weekend doing this.

[00:25:37] Latreace: You are gonna do it.

[00:25:38] Josh: You’re gonna do

[00:25:39] Josh: it.

[00:25:39] Josh: That’s so scary.

[00:25:41] Latreace: But, you know, years ago when I first got on, when I first started college, do you remember that they used to have credit card companies show up? I don’t know if they did it. You remember that? So I remember, I, I went to Florida a m University my freshman year of college.

[00:25:55] Latreace: So I left, Knoxville, Tennessee, and went across the country and one of the first things I saw on the campus was these people out here, they said, Hey, open up a credit card and you get this nice gift. Now what didn’t register was that you’re open up a credit card that you’re gonna spend all this money on for this little bitty gift that they’re giving you to entice you, I mean this, whatever it is. And so I was one of those students, like Christina said, in your twenties, for me, I had never had a credit card. So I went off to college. I got one credit card, and that one credit card as a college student destroyed my credit. Now, this is how I did it. I got this credit card. I was away. And my mother, I mean, real, real stories, real examples of college students. I need to pay my housing. So what do you do? You typically 30 years ago, use the credit card, right, to help with your, they do it now, but I used it. Then it was a $300 limit. Now my father said, Hey, I’m going to help you with that, so let’s make sure you track it and I’ll get back, get back, and I’ll pay for that. That credit card was not in my father’s name. That credit card was in my name. And although my father probably meant to help me, some years passed by guys. And I am in my first corporate job. So like Christina, I have a communications background, broadcast journalism, electronic media journalism. So my job, you know, I’m in my first corporate job after working in a newspaper for a year and a half. I am in community relations. I get a phone call, it’s about this credit card, this credit card guys that I used one time outta sight outta mind. I literally transferred from Florida a m to Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Finished up my degree worked and then all of a sudden this credit card pops up. The interest rate on the credit card was outrageous that a $300 limit went to, I think I was paying maybe 1500.

[00:28:05] Latreace: ’cause remember it’s, it’s adding up. And so at that point I get a phone call and Christina’s right when it comes to credit this day and age. This stuff can pop up, especially if you’re in certain levels and you’re moving into these positions where they’re looking at your, how you manage money?

[00:28:22] Latreace: ’cause you’re managing multiple budgets and, you know, events and resources within that department. So I get this information and I have to pay it off, right? I have to pay it off. My credit score plummeted twenties. I take this job in my early thirties for an an electric co-op. They tell me, Hey, we saw something on your credit.

[00:28:44] Latreace: And by the way, I pay that off. But like Christina said, it’s there now. I’m managing like three budgets. I’m planning big events, for the members, and then I’m doing community relations and employee volunteerism. Now. They told me that it would, it wouldn’t affect me and it didn’t, but I had to work on repair. repair. mode to ensure that that one mistake of just not paying attention, not whatever, and expecting a parent to help with a credit card that was in my name, which is accountability, responsibility, maturity. And so being on a college campus, you have to be mindful that when you get on the college campus, they may not have the credit card companies out there like they did before, but guess what?

[00:29:27] Latreace: Replaces it? Social media.

[00:29:29] Latreace: Social media replaces what we used to have with people saying, Hey, here’s an opportunity to get this. Take out more money on your student loans to help you pay for this and pay for that. Now we have social media and we have social media influencers, and they literally drive the conversations for those 18, and I dare say 30 year olds, because what they’re doing you want to do because you see automatic success. But you don’t have anyone telling you, like Christina said, you don’t have anyone telling you this is false, this is not accurate. You made a point about driving nice cars. Yes, a a person can go out and rent a car for show and you will never know that it was for show. But again, we have to figure out how to combat these things.

[00:30:13] Latreace: And on my college campus, that is why this program exists. It’s not just the students who are scholars in a financial literacy program, but it’s about what they’re charged to do as an as financial literacy ambassadors. And so when you have those partners who wanna come on campus and work with you, and they’re all about you receiving the correct and accurate information, then you’re changing the narrative.

[00:30:36] Latreace: You’re telling a different story on, we are all about financial literacy, empowerment. It’s basically a movement. It’s not a moment, it’s a movement. Because like you said, Josh, if we don’t do something today about it. It’s going to get significantly worse because now where are you getting your information?

[00:30:52] Latreace: If you’re not getting it from this bank where they have a reputable program or this credit union that you have a partnership with, where are you receiving your information? And if 45% of it’s incorrect, where’s the correct information

[00:31:04] Latreace: and how am I going to access it? How’s it reaching me and my students so that my students know this is incorrect?

[00:31:11] Latreace: So let us tell you where to get your information. So I think we have to start having those conversations about that part of it, not the misinformation, but the accuracy in the information. And how are we gonna use that information on a college campus to ensure that students are prepared when they arrive on campus throughout those four years of matriculation.

[00:31:30] Latreace: And then when they leave

[00:31:31] Latreace: that college, that’s, that’s what we have to start doing.

[00:31:35] Josh: You know, Latrice, you’re, I think you’ve made an important point too, though, that, I mean, I think we see a lot of this, and I don’t mean to be the grouchy old man that’s like the Debbie Downer now, but like, I, I feel like social media is to blame for this. Like the world of expectation of instant gratification.

[00:31:52] Josh: It’s just ridiculous these days. And so, absolutely. Like I don’t fault them for being a 19-year-old on a college campus and somebody tells you it’s gonna take years to build a really solid credit history, and you’re gonna have to do it step by step, and you’re gonna have to be really methodical. And it’s important that you don’t have misses along the way. And then some influencer comes on and goes, yeah, that lady’s crazy. You don’t have to do any of that. Follow my five step program, and in a week you can buy a Lamborghini.

[00:32:20] Josh: Like that sounds way better. No offense, Christina, but

[00:32:23] Josh: your advice sounds sucky. Like this guy sounds great,

[00:32:26] Latreace: Right.

[00:32:28] Josh: you know? And that’s hard to combat

[00:32:30] Latreace: It is.

[00:32:31] Josh: Like why

[00:32:31] Latreace: It’s the creativity with it

[00:32:33] Josh: an easy one?

[00:32:34] Latreace: Yeah.

[00:32:34] Latreace: We have to be creative, I think. I think it’s about. The same way they’re being creative. We have to figure out how to be creative. ’cause you do have different generations, which we haven’t even really touched on, that you have someone who’s in their sixties who may not be using social media, or maybe using it on a small level.

[00:32:49] Latreace: So anything they touch, they’re probably gonna think, oh, this is, is this too good to be true? And then you have different generations, so therefore they gravitate to different types of information. And you have some who are really skeptical because they have been burnt, they have, been affected.

[00:33:02] Latreace: or they may have lost a job. Right? So we have to have different information that hits people where they are. the recession is one of those conversation topics because you had people who were one level and when the recession. They end up being a different level. Or guess what, you have kids now, you didn’t have ’em 10 years ago.

[00:33:19] Latreace: So your financial decisions change. So you have to meet people where they are and decide what information we need to share with those people based on the different stages of life. And

[00:33:30] Latreace: again, I think that’s worth us exploring and talking a little bit more about. But I think Experian does that with, you know, the credit information.

[00:33:36] Latreace: And again, when these companies see the benefits and they talk to those who are working with college students, well let’s say elementary, middle, and high school students. ’cause now we have to take it back further. and work with students who are younger. So they understand as a freshman in high school that I’m taking a class and this class is about financial literacy 1 0 1 or, you know, budget basics. as a freshman in high school, I really think we need to go back to high school and start teaching the classes

[00:34:04] Latreace: so when they get to college and they make more money, they make wiser choices.

[00:34:08] Christina: Yes, and Experian has been championing financial literacy since the nineties. you know, we worked with Jumpstart, jump the Jumpstart Coalition. That is one of the big champions for financial literacy. They create a lot of, the groundwork for it. They bring teachers together every single year to provide, content education, introduce them to new resources that they could use in the classroom.

[00:34:31] Christina: So we believe heavily in the power of financial literacy and financial education in the classroom as just a starting point to get, the younger generations, In the right frame of mind when it comes to managing money and you know, how it can impact their overall financial goals. But how Latrice and how we became connected is through the program that she’s talking about, that center for fi for financial empowerment.

[00:34:55] Christina: they had come to Rowdy who manages our inclusion and belonging. He’s a, the director of inclusion belonging at Experian. And they said, Hey, we want a financial literacy session at our upcoming, money for Life conference. And this was back in 2022. And he said, okay, that sounds great. Let me see what I could put together.

[00:35:14] Christina: So then he came to my team and said, okay, this organization wants this, session at their upcoming conference, but I wanna do something bigger. He was like, I wanna think out of the box because I don’t wanna just stand there for an hour and, present to these students. I want to engage them in a longer program.

[00:35:30] Christina: So we sat, we took a whole day and we sat down and we. We ideated and we created, the, if you know, you know, credit Academy, and I know we talked about this, you, you actually said this earlier, you don’t know what you don’t know. So we created the, if you know, you know, credit Academy, and it was a six month long program where we went and we introduced it at Money For Life.

[00:35:49] Christina: We did a credit education session, but then we, we connected the students with financial resources for six months and then we hosted a hackathon at the end of it all. So they, they went through this whole learning process and then they had to create a product that could help teach financial literacy to their, their generation.

[00:36:07] Christina: And so we, this, it’s going on, its fourth year now, and every year it gets better and better, but I remember the first time we presented this idea to the students. they were skeptical of it. The Experian had never really been a big player in this conference or this space, and so they were like, oh, okay.

[00:36:25] Christina: I don’t know. But we said, we’ll fly you to California. We tried, we did all of these things and, we flew three teams to California and after students saw that we were going to invest in them, that they were gonna learn from this, they bought into it. And so every year it’s gotten bigger and bigger.

[00:36:41] Christina: But I’ll never forget the first year, one of the advisors, not Latrice. another advisor said, students already have a crazy work schedule and you’re adding this new project On top of that, why should they care about this? Why do they need to care about credit? And I was shocked that an adult was asking me this question because didn’t they know the impact that credit has on young students’ lives?

[00:37:03] Christina: Like, didn’t they know that this is a time that students should be absorbing as much credit education as possible? ’cause it’s gonna impact their ability to rent an apartment. It’s gonna impact their ability to get a cell phone. That’s just the little things. And then it’s gonna impact their ability to get a car at a decent interest rate in a high interest rate environment.

[00:37:19] Christina: You know, so it’s like everything’s already more expensive. Why would we want to, create a situation in which they’re gonna have to pay more because they have a ruined credit score, but they desperately need a car. You know, they’re gonna have to pay a 19% interest rate on a car, which is something that, that I encountered when I had ruined my credit.

[00:37:36] Christina: When I went to buy a car, I got approved in a 19% interest rate. Can you imagine paying a 19% interest rate on already? At the time, cars were more affordable. It was like a 13,000, $14,000 car. But even still, that was what I encountered. Now, I can’t even imagine the cost of cars now and how high those interest rates are if we don’t get this information in their hands before they make a mistake.

[00:37:58] Josh: Well, and that’s, I mean, that’s a really good point because that’s what creates some of the systemic fall that we see in people too, right? Because what happens is then you, you have the tanked credit score. So then let’s say you could afford a $300 a month car payment,

[00:38:14] Josh: right? But because the interest rate is so high, so much of that is going to interest, you have to buy a cheaper car.

[00:38:21] Josh: Well, that cheaper car is now older, has more miles, has

[00:38:24] Josh: more problems. Now you get hit with a repair bill, and all of a sudden now you’ve got an alternator that goes out and you’ve gotta pay 700 bucks outta nowhere that you weren’t expecting, that you didn’t budget for, and now you’re just taking steps further and further back, right?

[00:38:41] Josh: And it all started from that point. I, before I forget, I want to say Latrice, you gave me a great idea, Christina. I think, Experian needs to do a, you need to do a commercial. And you need to have like some, like quintessential stereotype, like young influencer bro with his like Lamborghini in front of the expensive house, like shooting his content for financial, like help. And then all of a sudden you need to have like the police roll up and be like, you’re trespassing.

[00:39:09] Christina: Yeah.

[00:39:10] Josh: your property. And then like Hertz show up and be like, dude, you’re overdue on the car rental. It’s coming back. And then like Nordstrom comes and takes their clothes back because the card got declined.

[00:39:20] Josh: And like he’s just standing there in his boxers like an idiot. Like

[00:39:24] Christina: Yeah.

[00:39:25] Josh: getting, you know, I’m like, you gotta be

[00:39:27] Josh: creative. Right.

[00:39:28] Christina: is getting ideas because our next, the next prompt for, the, if you know, you know, credit Academy is actually taking our BFF commercials a step further and making it relatable to this generation. So you might’ve just given Latrice team a little bit of a leg up and an idea on how to get started.

[00:39:45] Latreace: And let me tell you what, let me tell you, I gotta, and I gotta use this time to, to put this in there, that Christina, she prompted me for it. I’m ready. Put it on cue. All right. So we actually, uh, competed in the first year

[00:39:58] Latreace: of the competition. We did not win Josh. We did not win. But, we did not meet, we did not make it the second year. But not only did we make it the third year, but we won it the third year,

[00:40:10] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:11] Latreace: year. So That’s kind of how this thing comes. All together

[00:40:16] Latreace: because it has become a big deal. this partnership, the creative ideas, the students take it very seriously because they recognize someone is asking us to come up with really creative ideas and work together.

[00:40:32] Latreace: Have computer science students, you have business students. They come together and they create these ideas. Now we just take a step further for us. I made them dress in costume and, and

[00:40:42] Latreace: Christina knows I’m very, I’m very passionate, which is one of

[00:40:45] Latreace: my power words. Passionate. Yeah.

[00:40:48] Christina: Talking.

[00:40:49] Latreace: A little passionate.

[00:40:50] Latreace: Very energetic, A little dramatic with a minor in drama and speech. So go figure. But I think that helps when it comes to connecting with the students because they recognize that I am all in it. If they’re in it and I’m gonna meet them where they are, but at the end of the day, I’m gonna give a hundred percent when I know that they have some skin in the game

[00:41:10] Latreace: and they work. Long hours. They had a whole Pink Panther idea with their, and with the setup, I mean, we had everything from an investigative Mr. Mr. Gadget type look, to help you solve your own financial problems. And so they

[00:41:25] Latreace: did a really good job. and we’re losing those seniors who have been with our program for four years, which is another plus students who come into the CFA program start their freshman year on average, and they stay all four years.

[00:41:39] Latreace: Now,

[00:41:39] Latreace: that said, that said, that means you are always trying to make sure that you are not only doing this for yourself, but you’re actually passing that information on. And, we’ve had our second student who graduated valedictorian. She was the president of the CFA Scholars Program. She bought her house within three months of graduation.

[00:41:58] Latreace: So now that we started this process, my, my concern is how do we keep up? With

[00:42:04] Latreace: all the great things that are happening with on within our campus, on our

[00:42:08] Christina: Yeah.

[00:42:08] Latreace: uh, we are telling a story. We’re telling a very different story today than we told eight years ago when this program started.

[00:42:14] Latreace: We, we wouldn’t be able to do this without partners,

[00:42:16] Latreace: without people.

[00:42:17] Latreace: Like I said, Christina came on board and she met with Rowdy and next thing you know, every year this thing is blowing up. But Josh, honestly, this is a great opportunity, like you said, to take the information, use this particular format to talk about things that are happening, but then also challenge those groups, those organizations and say, how do we partner, figure out in your backyard which organizations or schools or universities could use your help? ’cause there’s some underserved communities out here.

[00:42:47] Latreace: There are some universities, like I said, I’m at A-H-B-C-U. there are students who are coming here, from small towns, large cities, rural areas, urban areas, and out outside the country. And they’re looking for ways to be better, not just academically, but personally, professionally. And, and so we wanna make sure that they’re well-rounded and they’re, they, they’re holistic in the process. And that financial literacy component is critical because it is a difference maker. And you owning a home in your twenties versus you being in your forties because you made one bad mistake, you didn’t pay a bill or you forgot about a bill. And so I do think that partnerships like this one creates access.

[00:43:29] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:30] Latreace: It changes the dynamics of is it equitable? You know, is it fair? Is there equity involved? Um, and it does touch those communities and not just the school. But the, the people in the community that are near that university. So I can see us doing even more because we have a learners program now, and I’ve, challenged the students to really look at financial literacy on a larger scale, and let’s figure out how we can bring in, partners to talk to the community and open up some of the workshops to our community and find resources to support someone who may be middle age who’ve never owned a home

[00:44:06] Latreace: and hadn’t had, were just afraid.

[00:44:08] Latreace: I mean, think about it. People were just afraid to take risks when it comes to their credit, when it

[00:44:14] Latreace: comes to their finances, because they did have some hiccups and someone told them some bad advice along

[00:44:20] Latreace: the way that you would never own a home. Or, you know what, you don’t have enough money to get this home now. But it’s not a no, it’s a no,

[00:44:27] Latreace: not right now. A

[00:44:28] Latreace: no, not now. Maybe in the future. And then maybe look at ways to help that community that’s a part of our community.

[00:44:36] Christina: I think that speaks to everything that Latrice said that no, not right now. that Latrice is a perfect example of not right now, because yes, her team didn’t win that first year, but she competed every year and she brought them back to take the home, the win, last year. And one thing I didn’t say is this program, not only do we do, we fly these students out, they’re playing for $40,000.

[00:45:00] Christina: So they’re playing for a pretty huge pot of money that goes directly to them, goes directly to the students, and, they get to use it for buying, you know, whatever equipment that they need for school. It’s not, they get to choose how they’re going to use it, but, That’s so important that not right now, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not forever.

[00:45:21] Christina: I think there’s a lot of misconception, a lot, there’s a lot of internalization around in conversations around, money and, oh, you’ll never be able to own a house, or, oh, credit’s horrible, don’t use credit. Like there, there’s that negativity around it and it’s reframing that, and I love that. That’s what Latrice is doing.

[00:45:38] Christina: She’s reframing these conversations for students and saying, maybe it’s not right now, but it’s not a no forever. So get your ducks in a row, get that education going so that when it comes time for your time to shine, then you can do it. You know? And that’s, I think you mentioned earlier, some people, it’s happening for them in their twenties.

[00:45:56] Christina: Other people, it’s their thirties, their forties. It’s never too late. that’s what I love about the work that we get to do. It’s never too late. You can learn and you can make a positive impact no matter where you are in your financial journey.

[00:46:08] Josh: You know, that it’s never too late and the No, not right now. I, I think are just such important simple concepts for people. the another interesting thing about, money and finance and credit and all of this is it’s compounding,

[00:46:23] Josh: right? And so I think, you know, one of the big lessons that is sometimes hard for people to hear is that, no, not right now, but if you take right now as your new starting point and you start to set yourself up for success, then that’s gonna compound.

[00:46:37] Josh: And you’re gonna get to that house faster. But if you don’t and you keep not doing it, or you keep on the path you are, that’s also just gonna make it that much longer

[00:46:47] Josh: before it becomes the yes. Right. And I wanted to, Latrice, you brought up something that I wanted to go back to. just a, a super simple point that I’d love to get your, your ladies’ thoughts on.

[00:46:57] Josh: Um.

[00:46:58] Christina: Okay.

[00:46:58] Josh: They’re super simple little tips and tricks that also people just don’t know if they’re not told. And I have a really similar story to you. Mine was a $7 medical bill, a $7

[00:47:09] Josh: medical bill, and I had ruined my credit in like my 18, 19 years. And then I got connected with a credit union that helped me and we started to fix it.

[00:47:21] Josh: And I was on a good path. And then I got to a point where like I was kind of just on autopilot, right? Like I knew the things to do, I was doing the things, all of that. And I was at a place where I didn’t really need to use my credit that much. And so it went a while before I needed to use my credit. It.

[00:47:38] Josh: And I remember distinctly that the last time I had looked, I was like getting into the mid seven hundreds and I

[00:47:44] Latreace: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:45] Josh: really good about that, right? And so when I went to use my credit again, I was like, I’ve gotta be getting close to like 800 by now, right? Like I was, I was super excited and I went to check and it was in the six hundreds and I was like, what happened? I’ve been doing everything right. So I had moved and a medical bill got sent to my old house. And then I never went back to that doctor because I moved. I never heard from them. They kept sending mail to that old address, never got it. It was $7. And the only way I found out about it was that, and I called him up, I settled the bill and I was like, man, do you guys not think that you should have like called me?

[00:48:30] Josh: Like $7, like I could understand me maybe trying to run away from a couple grand, but like seven bucks I could have found.

[00:48:36] Christina: Yeah.

[00:48:37] Josh: Right? And so the point I’m trying to make is similar to yours, like one of the other simple things is just monitor your credit,

[00:48:45] Josh: monitor your credit, and at the very least, I would’ve noticed the missed payment or

[00:48:48] Latreace: Yes. Yes.

[00:48:50] Josh: right?

[00:48:50] Latreace: Yes,

[00:48:52] Christina: yes.

[00:48:53] Latreace: Can I say that right there? You, you just hit a nerve, Josh. You just hit a nerve. Listen, that is cri. I think that’s one of the biggest points. I think if we knew now today, there’s so many opportunities. You have your Credit Karma, you have all these, I have experience where I literally go in every month, I get alerts, I get all these different alerts on how to, you know, look at the, the opportunity to increase your score.

[00:49:16] Latreace: What can you do? why is there score this, this score right now? What are the things affecting your score? I’ve had it for years and I pay a monthly fee. Now, let me say this. I pay a monthly fee because I think a low fee to help me stay on target is very, very easy to do For me, it is priceless for me because

[00:49:38] Latreace: it lets me know and I stay current. Every month I know the, you know, what the credit score looks like, and every 90 days I know what the, the three credit scores look like, especially when you’re purchasing a home. You know, a few years ago we, went from one home to another, and again, like you said, I didn’t have to worry about monitoring it because I already created process 15 years ago to say, okay, these are resources,

[00:50:00] Latreace: but I’m telling you the, the collections piece of the medical bills, people don’t realize a medical bill will affect you more than a credit card bill because a $7 or even a hundred dollars bill that you didn’t receive in your hand and no one called you about it, means that now your, your score dipped a hundred plus points. It is hard to go back to that score overnight. It takes a considerate amount of time. It’s not an overnight thing you can do unless you’re paying off a bunch of bills. If you don’t have them, it’s one. One late payment can bring your score down 30 to 50 points depending on which credit card it is and how, what the limit is.

[00:50:41] Latreace: So I think that monitoring, credit monitoring is very critical. People should check their credit scores every 30 days because life is happening. I mean, you, you, life is happening and things you are needing. You need credit, like you said, we’re autopilot. So five years passes by and it was, it was this score and it, I’ve been doing everything right.

[00:51:02] Latreace: And you didn’t realize that something hit your credit score, but you didn’t take that small moment to check it either. So credit

[00:51:08] Latreace: monitoring needs to be a, a thing that we talk about more

[00:51:11] Latreace: for the older, seasoned people

[00:51:14] Latreace: because they get comfortable in life and then the child goes to college or this, the child needs a loan, a student loan, and you’re

[00:51:21] Latreace: like, okay, where am I with student loans because

[00:51:24] Latreace: did I get that?

[00:51:25] Latreace: You know, I’m just

[00:51:26] Latreace: think about it. You don’t think about it. Student loans is another thing, which is why that credit counsel in your senior year is important because you’re gonna add an extra bill to your plate. And if you’re going to graduate school and you’re continuing your education, guess what All this debt is going to incur

[00:51:41] Latreace: and you don’t have a plan and you’re not working while you’re in school.

[00:51:44] Latreace: But guess what? It’s weighing on you when you get out. So what’s gonna be your plan in the in between time? So I think that these conversations are very critical. I’m a senior class advisor, so we do do a financial literacy session for the students and they have a mandatory session before they graduate.

[00:51:59] Latreace: But in the spaces that I’m in, I try to make sure that all the programs in my office, I have an executive leadership program for freshmen and sophomores. I have an insurance banking program. I have a ins, insurance, a banking, and CFA. And so all those programs have financial literacy embedded within those programs.

[00:52:16] Latreace: Because

[00:52:17] Latreace: I know from my mistake or what I didn’t know, my goal is to ensure that no one else goes through those hiccups. I can eliminate the amount of hiccups that they experience

[00:52:27] Latreace: just by having programs.

[00:52:28] Josh: Now, and I want to talk about the, the, like what were did, just the changing world. And stuff too. But I wanna also just make a comment that may a little bit risque, but but I have this conversation with people a lot when, back to what you were saying, like it, it doesn’t happen overnight to fix your credit.

[00:52:48] Josh: It takes a long time to build and you can wreck it overnight. And I’ve had a lot of people, you know, are like, oh, that’s unfair. That’s the system gaming you. I’m like, look, think about it this way. You can be a faithful spouse for 10 years. You cheat on ’em once the trust is broken,

[00:53:02] Josh: right? And that’s what we’re doing here.

[00:53:04] Josh: We’re saying, Hey, you can trust that if you loan me money, I will pay it back. And you can do a great job of that. But if one day you’re like, I’m not going to, then everybody else from that point forward is gonna go, Hey, maybe something changed for them.

[00:53:17] Josh: Maybe they’re no longer that trustworthy person,

[00:53:19] Josh: right?

[00:53:20] Josh: So yes, this does have an impact. You have to think about it that way you’re not just building your credit score, you’re building kind of your, I guess like social trust score,

[00:53:29] Josh: like this is

[00:53:30] Josh: saying, Hey, I, I stand by my word. If I say that I’m gonna borrow money from you, I’m gonna pay it back. Then I stand by that word and that

[00:53:37] Josh: means something to people, right?

[00:53:40] Christina: Can I make two points, two quick points. Just touching on medical debt. only because I love that the system is always evolving, right? And so now fortunately, a $7 missed payment is not gonna impact somebody’s credit because a collection account under $500 is not reported to their credit bureau.

[00:54:00] Christina: So that’s, you’re not gonna see that on your credit report any longer. So,

[00:54:04] Josh: That’s cool.

[00:54:04] Christina: The other thing about medical collections is that they work a little bit differently than a credit card collection account. You know, the consumer has up to a year, if it’s over $500, they have up to a year to figure out, how they’re gonna pay it back before it can negatively impact their credit.

[00:54:21] Christina: So that’s two things to know about medical collections. and then also what Latrice was saying about credit monitoring, and that’s super important. There’s a huge misconception that if you check your credit report or you look at your credit score, that it’s gonna negatively impact you. This is your information.

[00:54:37] Christina: This is information about you that has been reported to the credit bureaus by your lenders. So you need to know what is being reported about you to, to the bureaus. So you, you should access your credit report, you should access it. At least once a year. But we always recommend credit monitoring to Latrice Point.

[00:54:55] Christina: Now Experian offers free credit monitoring. you get access to your FICO score and your Experian credit report monthly. that’s the free version. Latrice was saying that she pays for the premium version. Now, when you have a premium version, that’s when you get access to a lot more financial tools, like a credit simulator and a credit score planner.

[00:55:14] Christina: And that’s what she was referring to. Like, if I do this, how is it gonna impact my credit score? That’s our simulator. Our planner is, Hey, I wanna buy a house in, in a 12 months. how can I get my credit score where it needs to be? And we give you a couple of actionable steps, but the important thing about checking your credit score, even with a free version, is that it’s gonna come with a list of factors that are benefiting your credit score and hurting your credit score.

[00:55:37] Christina: So this takes a mystery out of why is my credit score what it is today? It’s telling you these are the actions. That are the reason why you’re seeing this number today. And then you can take steps to improve your credit score. And that’s better than that blanketed version of how do I improve my credit score on Google or on social media.

[00:55:56] Christina: And they’re telling you all this advice that really doesn’t pertain to you. ’cause that’s not the reason why your credit score is what it is. That’s why you need to check your credit score.

[00:56:04] Latreace: And thank Christine. I’m glad you brought that up because you’re right, there are different, opportunities out there for you to pay for something extra that benefits you and you don’t have to,

[00:56:14] Latreace: this was a choice that I made as a

[00:56:16] Latreace: consumer because of my missteps and that I wanted to be, you know, in charge of what was happening and know that I could control it differently.

[00:56:23] Latreace: But you’re right, I know the rule of thumb is to tell people to check their credit score at least once a year so they’re not caught off guard. in terms of this score being different today. Um, and I also know that you can, you can actually get the, you can check all of your, with each of the bureaus.

[00:56:37] Latreace: Correct. So I think that is good and that’s why it’s, it’s helpful to have these conversations so that there’s somebody out there that didn’t know, Hey, you can check your credit. Once a year you

[00:56:46] Latreace: hit this free report, and yes, you can have the monitoring if you would like to pay extra, but there, there’s resources out there that are free, but you

[00:56:55] Latreace: wanna make sure they’re legitimate resources

[00:56:57] Latreace: and they’re just not, you said not someone telling you that.

[00:57:00] Latreace: Their own experience. Now their experiences are great. We all have similar experiences, but

[00:57:05] Latreace: trustworthy. I

[00:57:06] Latreace: mean, it’s a, it’s a legitimate service and it’s not someone on the, on the hill just trying to get some likes to tell

[00:57:11] Latreace: you to do these things and then you mess up your credit even more because you listened to one person who wasn’t a subject matter expert or

[00:57:18] Latreace: didn’t have that information to be able to provide the, real knowledge to help you.

[00:57:22] Latreace: Yeah. I’m

[00:57:23] Latreace: glad

[00:57:23] Josh: and I wanna sh I wanna shout out, you know, I mean that’s one of the reasons why I love the industry that I’m in so much too, right? Is you think about credit unions and community banks, like they are your advocate.

[00:57:36] Christina: Yes.

[00:57:37] Josh: They really are. And a lot of, you know, credit unions and community banks, a lot of ’em offer. A lot of these tools through Experian at no charge to you.

[00:57:48] Josh: So they’ll even pay that bill that Latrice is paying for you because you’re a member of their institution, right? And because they really and truly are invested in your success. That’s cool.

[00:57:59] Josh: I’ve seen some of the bills of what our customers pay to offer these kinds of services, and it’s not nothing

[00:58:06] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:06] Josh: that is an absolute put your money where your mouth is, statement of saying like, we truly, truly care about your success.

[00:58:16] Josh: So, you know, this is why even just the financial institution you choose to bank with can have a huge ins Im, you know, impact on your trajectory. Because man, could you imagine if you’re going to school and you’re talking to Latrice every day and you’re banking with a credit union or a community bank that’s talking to you every day and you’re listening to Christina’s, you know, podcasts and social media posts and seeing what they’re putting out. Versus doing none of those things. I mean, we’re talking especially over a lifetime,

[00:58:49] Josh: a completely different ending point.

[00:58:51] Christina: Yes. also to your point, not only do they, invest in their members, they invest in their employees as well. ’cause we’ve done trainings for

[00:58:58] Latreace: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:59] Christina: the credit union employees and community banks. You know, they’re investing in financial literacy for their employees. So that when they talk to you, they’re coming from a point of knowledge and they’re helping you to be a better member for their institution.

[00:59:12] Christina: Right. Because that, hugely important. Educating the, the employees. That’s also a big part of what I do at Experian. I educate our employees through our education ambassador program. So when they start working at, at Experian, they don’t always touch credit. we’re a huge company. we’re a data and technology company.

[00:59:30] Christina: We have a variety of business units and not all of them are credit focused, but I know that the information that I can provide them could benefit their financial life. It could benefit their kids’ financial life. It could benefit their community. so just ’cause they don’t touch credit doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t know how it works.

[00:59:48] Christina: So we offer a once a month credit education class, and then they become education ambassadors. And, they then can use the resources that we provide them to go out into their community to go to their child’s school and offer a credit education session. ’cause we know that financial literacy isn’t where it should be right now.

[01:00:07] Christina: Yes. it’s growing. More states are, requiring financial literacy to be in schools, but it’s not where it needs to be. So these are kind of our boots on the ground going out into the community and sharing this information that I’m sharing here today with as many people as they can.

[01:00:24] Josh: You know, so I wanted to come back to one of the big topics. I wanna open a big camera worms that we’ve kind of touched on a little bit. But not only are we combating the fact that there is still a mass amount of information or people that are just uneducated and uninformed about financial literacy and, you know, their credit score and things like that. But at the same time, we’re combating like a whole new world,

[01:00:49] Josh: right? We’re in a whole new world of, ways in which we use money, ways in which we shop. we’re in a whole new world of what things cost and what kind of the, I guess, expectation people have of the things they have looks like. The pressures that we face.

[01:01:07] Josh: I mean, this is a whole new world. And even, you know, Latrice, you were making me think about like, how many different places do we now, you know, have just a couple of bucks a month for things and maybe you put it on a debit card and then that debit card gets compromised, you get a new card number and you forget. And now that recurring payment that came out is not getting made and now you miss a payment, right? Like, that wasn’t even a thing not that long ago. And now it is. And because some of those things are so cheap, what we find is where, you know, there used to be maybe what five payments, major payments that we would make every month, right?

[01:01:48] Josh: Your, home, your auto loan,

[01:01:51] Latreace: Insurance

[01:01:52] Josh: card, insurance, you know, something like that. Some of the major stuff, now we’ve got 50, 60, like, I don’t know, I got 9 99 for Netflix

[01:02:01] Josh: and you know, yeah. Like all sorts of stuff.

[01:02:05] Latreace: Apple Cloud.

[01:02:07] Josh: And then you add on

[01:02:08] Josh: top of it like BNPL

[01:02:10] Josh: and it being able to just like, here, here, here, very easily access.

[01:02:16] Josh: So there’s just, the point I’m trying to make is that none of it is necessarily bad or negative, but it makes complex,

[01:02:22] Josh: it makes it all of a sudden complex to realize like, dude, I got like 60 different places. I gotta make sure to get paid.

[01:02:28] Christina: Yes, a hundred percent. And actually that scenario just happened to me yesterday. my husband, I had, I thought I lost my debit card. It disappeared for a while. So I got a new debit card and I went through and I talked to the hundreds of places that we have subscriptions and gym payments and all this other stuff.

[01:02:45] Christina: I had forgotten to update the 24 hour fitness membership. So Josh was like, somebody at my, Josh is my husband. He is like, I keep getting a phone call from 24 Hour Fitness, and they say we owe them $90. And I was like, oh my gosh. When I updated my debit card a couple months ago, I forgot to update 24 Hour Fitness.

[01:03:02] Christina: So that’s that one thing. That I completely forgot about. And so now, you know, we had to call them and pay them and, but yeah, it could be so easy to forget. But that’s why also now, thankfully, we have more access to our accounts than ever before. There’s apps where you can check, okay, what’s the, what am I paying?

[01:03:23] Christina: I, I go over my monthly statement regularly. I have, I’m old school so I don’t use like an app to build a budget. I have an Excel sheet ’cause I just like to go

[01:03:32] Latreace: Christina, that’s me.

[01:03:35] Christina: I have that button that paid, not paid yet. I, when it’s paid, it’s green. So I’m like, yes, paid, paid, paid. So I can go through and make sure that every transaction that I need monthly is paid, you know.

[01:03:45] Christina: But yeah, there’s so many things that we’re paying now that, that we have to be very careful and make sure that we’re making those payments ’cause it could impact us negatively if we don’t. But yes, I’m a

[01:03:55] Josh: You know, that’s funny, Christie. so actually, I think in a couple of weeks I’m recording an episode with a guest who, who started a, I, I don’t want to call it budget, ’cause she’ll slap my hand for it. but like a budgeting tool that’s reimagined because the point is that you talk to a bunch of people.

[01:04:16] Josh: I’d like to think we’re smart people. We work in this industry, and I’m with you. I manage all of our family’s finances on a spreadsheet.

[01:04:24] Josh: Right. Like all of us revert back to a spreadsheets. I’m like, somebody’s gotta solve it and just give us the more modern spreadsheet, like trying to stop, trying to make it too creative.

[01:04:32] Josh: We just need a better spreadsheet.

[01:04:33] Josh: Like it just,

[01:04:34] Latreace: Yeah, that’s it. Because you know people, again, you’re dealing with generations, you’re dealing with people who learned, I go back to a

[01:04:40] Latreace: checkbook.

[01:04:41] Latreace: Talking about spreadsheets. I, we, I had balance a checkbook to the, to the

[01:04:44] Latreace: $0. And I used to, and to this day, I still do it. I have a notebook I carry around and I write down my expenses.

[01:04:51] Latreace: So when I do my reconciliation, you know, and I look into, oh, where’s money going? You mean I spent $15 at Starbucks? I’m not even a Starbucks drinker like that. I’m drinking Earl grave, London Fog. And then you look at how much money you spend and you’re looking at, you’re thinking, my goodness, we pay that much on coffee.

[01:05:09] Latreace: You know,

[01:05:11] Josh: Yeah, I know. Literally it’s Christina and I have our coffee. Hey, at least

[01:05:15] Josh: my coffee is Java for kids coffee, and it goes to donate funds to see you for kids. So I’m making a difference there,

[01:05:21] Josh: but

[01:05:22] Christina: There you go.

[01:05:23] Latreace: I mean, just think about the expenses. Like you said, you

[01:05:26] Latreace: forget, you change over a card, but Christina, you gave me a thought. And I feel like it’s another way for us to stay on top of the different things that are happening. They’re happening so rapidly with platforms, like you said, apps. I think we should have a monthly, RCFA scholars or CFA program should have a monthly, document that goes out to the university that says, you know, have you thought about this today?

[01:05:48] Latreace: Like, we’ve talked about three or four things today.

[01:05:51] Latreace: Just have you checked to make sure if you changed cards, that everything’s been moved over so you don’t miss out on a payment or, you know, just simple tips, little things like this or you know, that you can share maybe electronically with someone. Say, Hey, DIDD, you think about this.

[01:06:04] Latreace: Oh, I didn’t think about that. Or, you know, did you at, at the CF, at the CFA, regional conference a couple weeks ago, maybe two weeks ago, they are doing a challenge and the challenge is to, for one weekend not to spend money on, you know, all the little extra things you would spend money on. Maybe you don’t have a go out to dinner one that weekend. Maybe you do something with your, subscription, whatever, but it’s to show them that they can put that little bit of money away in pocket. and see how much

[01:06:32] Latreace: money they’re actually spending over a weekend. again, it could be something like that. So, Hey, I know you wanna go out to the game this weekend, but maybe you don’t get that hot dog

[01:06:42] Josh: Yeah.

[01:06:43] Latreace: that’s gonna cost you $50.

[01:06:45] Latreace: maybe you, you opt to go and eat at home and then go to the game and take that $50 and put it up in your savings or put it up on a,

[01:06:53] Latreace: an emergency fund. So I think, I think now, you know, talking to you guys, it for us in my role, having something each month that we send out to our faculty staff and students, or maybe our faculty and staff and touch them in a different way. You know, Hey, here’s some things that might help you, help you. And then each month we send out something different because again, there’s always ways to improve our thinking or enhance our, our, our knowledge around. Why we do the things that we do when it comes to our finances. Why do we make these decisions? Well, I didn’t know there’s

[01:07:22] Latreace: another app. Josh said, oh, there’s a person that’s gonna come on this podcast and tell us about this app, or excuse me, this spreadsheet that could be enhanced that

[01:07:30] Latreace: might help those over a certain age, use their spreadsheets, but use them differently.

[01:07:36] Josh: No. You know what’s funny, Latrice, you might like this, so you want to know the single most effective technique we’ve ever instituted in our house for controlling our spend

[01:07:45] Josh: is, and, and what’s funny is we’ve gotten away from it and I’m, as I’m doing this podcast, I’m like, I’m gonna reinstate that. is my wife and I used to have a piece of paper. And

[01:07:55] Josh: it was just a, a little like about this big piece of paper that was a Monday through, Sunday calendar, and it was like a little packet, you know, that you could rip off each week and every single day. Anything you spent, anything, if it was $1 or a thousand dollars, you had to write it on the sheet in the kitchen. And my

[01:08:17] Josh: wife and I each had a colored marker and we would hold ourselves accountable. And I, it literally would make me Latrice. I would be like, I’m gonna go buy that, you know, whatever hot dog. And I’d be like, do I really wanna put that on the sheet? Do I really want Erica to look at me and go, did you really spend $17 on a hot dog?

[01:08:35] Josh: And I’d be like, nah, no, I’m good. I’m not gonna buy the hot dog. And man, like the level of accountability that it

[01:08:41] Latreace: It is so

[01:08:41] Josh: of literally just do I want to have to write this down on the sheet and do I have to wanna like explain it when we look at the sheet at the end of the week and man, did it do a good job of controlling some spending, especially the impulse stuff.

[01:08:54] Christina: That’s

[01:08:55] Latreace: impulse buying.

[01:08:56] Christina: well spending is, is a tough one, especially because now there’s digital wallets for everything. So like people have their cards and so many different websites, right? And so it’s so easy, your, your information’s already there. All you have to do is click buy, you know? So setting up those alerts for yourself of like, Hey, wait a minute, do I really need this?

[01:09:17] Christina: Or if I really want this, can it wait until tomorrow? And then by tomorrow you’re like, I didn’t really need that. I didn’t need that thing. So you don’t buy it. You know, setting those little checks in place, like a little 24 hour rule before you do that also. ’cause a lot of times it’s small purchases. It’s like, let’s just six bucks.

[01:09:33] Christina: It’s just five bucks. That’s

[01:09:35] Latreace: it adds up.

[01:09:36] Christina: bucks adds up at the end of the week,

[01:09:38] Latreace: You all have small kids too, right?

[01:09:40] Christina: Yes.

[01:09:41] Latreace: think about it and you are thinking, let me go and get this snack ’cause I

[01:09:44] Latreace: left a snack at the house.

[01:09:46] Latreace: We have to go and sit for a baseball game for several hours. So I want the kids. So it’s those little things too.

[01:09:54] Latreace: But I do think it helps if people start to have these conversations and it’s not, it’s not overwhelming, it’s just general everyday conversations like we’re having about, so what could I do differently the next week?

[01:10:06] Latreace: You know? I mean, I think I may have spent. Like I said, Starbucks. So I’m not, I don’t do Starbucks every day. I mean, it’s a treat. If I do Starbucks on a Friday, I’m looking forward to, and again, I make my own Earl Gray tea at home, but it’s something about that little Starbucks feel that, you know, gives you pleasure.

[01:10:24] Latreace: And that’s my treat. But what did I give up? Because I know that I’m gonna spend, you know, so much money on that one treat. Is there something else I can give up? Well, I didn’t eat out this week, so I didn’t eat out. So I can have that. So I, again, I think it’s about making wiser decisions or cho choices to help you with your financial journey, wherever that is. And to still not feel like you’re being confined to a certain space because you can’t spend money.

[01:10:49] Latreace: But it’s just making better decisions because no one wants to be

[01:10:51] Latreace: restricted. It’s like eating. I mean, I, I

[01:10:53] Latreace: mean, listen, I, I love my good meals. I’m a, I’m a foodie, so you’re restricting me on all levels.

[01:10:58] Latreace: So let me just say this. If I’ve got my little allowance that I, and that’s something, it’s hard for me because I, I get under my husband, we, Thursday nights is our, our hangout night. We have our date night, we have our little, let’s

[01:11:08] Latreace: just hang out and just kind of, you know, relax. And he got back in last night.

[01:11:13] Latreace: We outta town all week and he wants to hang out. And I’m looking at him like, okay, we’ve gone here and we’ve gone here. And I’m thinking, looking at the little amount, some money, and I’m thinking, no more. We’re done. We’re going to the house. So again,

[01:11:25] Latreace: Josh, I may have to take that concept to put it on the refrigerator.

[01:11:28] Josh: Well, you know, I, I think you make another really important point, Latrice, and I think this is actually, if I might insert some of my own personal opinion, I actually think this is also one of the challenges that we face as a society is, um, you know, money is a really big topic and it, and it comes up because it gets seen in so many different ways, right? And the challenge is, like if you have three different friends and let’s just use whatever super simple examples or something, right? And like one of ’em really likes nice cars and one of ’em really likes big homes and one of ’em likes really expensive clothes. And you’re like, well, I need all three of those.

[01:12:08] Josh: What we don’t realize is the friend that has the really nice cars lives in a really small home

[01:12:14] Josh: and doesn’t go out to eat. And the friend that lives in a really nice home drives a 1982 Honda

[01:12:20] Latreace: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right.

[01:12:23] Josh: you know, sometimes we don’t understand people’s full pictures. And then at the same time, I think we sometimes do a disservice to people where, and I think this is where a lot of the times when budgets come into play, we go wrong. So one of our, senior solutions consultants, and I use ourselves as an example all the time of this, is a lot of times, like if he and I run ourselves through a lot of these budgeting tools, they tell Jimmy, he and Amanda, his wife, overspend, significantly on dining out. And they tell my wife and I that we overspend on groceries. Well, Jimmy and Amanda are dual income no kids.

[01:13:03] Josh: And they live crazy. Frugally

[01:13:07] Josh: drive old cars like live in the same house for forever. They don’t spend money anywhere except two places, clothes and food out.

[01:13:17] Josh: And that’s their thing. They love to be able to go out multiple times a week, get dressed up for each other and go out to a nice meal and they will scrimp on everything else.

[01:13:28] Josh: Jimmy will nickel and dime a $5 Netflix and then won’t bat an eye spending a hundred bucks on sushi.

[01:13:35] Josh: Right? flip side, my wife and I, we have two young kids going out to eat is just not in our cards right now. So we never go out to eat, but we want to have nice meals at home,

[01:13:48] Josh: right? And so if we apply the same logic to the two of us, it’s saying in different areas, we’re wrong,

[01:13:55] Josh: as opposed to kinda looking at the whole thing.

[01:13:57] Josh: And I think what’s missed, and this is actually, so the guests that I have coming up, Her whole philosophy is start with a question. So what does success look like to

[01:14:06] Latreace: Right.

[01:14:07] Josh: Because to Jimmy, if I came to Jimmy and I said, Jimmy, what does financial success look like to you? He would say, well, for starters, like I want Amanda and I to retire.

[01:14:14] Josh: We wanna be, you know, we wanna have a cushion, all of those things. But like when I ask him, Jimmy, where do you want to spend your money? He’s gonna go, I want to take Amanda out to a hundred dollars sushi date tonight.

[01:14:24] Josh: I’m like, great. How can we set that up into your plan? Right? But if then I create that plan for Jimmy and I try to apply it to my life, it doesn’t work

[01:14:32] Latreace: Well, it doesn’t work that way.

[01:14:34] Josh: And so I think it’s important to kind of have conversations with people and understand, well, what is your definition of success? And sometimes that’s achievable and sometimes it’s not.

[01:14:41] Josh: And then back to, I’m stealing this from you, Latrice, back to maybe that definition of success is just not right now.

[01:14:48] Christina: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:14:51] Latreace: I mean, it’s simple. Like we love to eat out, but even when we know, you know, a good example, we, we used to eat out New Year’s Eve. You know, new Year’s Eve was a big deal, and we found these really nice restaurants that had, you know, four course, five course meals with the wine pairings. and we would eat out five, like five times a year. Our birthdays, our anniversary. and the sad thing is all this is at one time, literally his birthday’s in November, mine is in our anniversary’s, his, birthday’s the eighth. Our anniversary’s the 16th. So that,

[01:15:20] Latreace: that goes to tell you then we’ve got my birthdays three days before Christmas.

[01:15:24] Latreace: Then you have New Year’s and you have Valentine’s Day. We had to prioritize because after 10 years of eating out and spending four or $500 on this really nice restaurant. You know, for New Year’s. And New Year’s became like our anniversary thing because it’s, we wanted to sit down and talk about our success in the previous year, how we’re

[01:15:44] Latreace: doing, you know, what wasn’t so good, what did we learn?

[01:15:47] Latreace: And it’s just a great way to kind of go somewhere. But my husband falling out for 10 years, you know? No, it’s costing too much money. And then we tried it this past year and we did a lunch and y’all, it wasn’t the same.

[01:16:00] Latreace: So I told my hu it just wasn’t the same, it the lunch versus the dinner and getting ready and we just decided let’s cut out the other meals and they’re

[01:16:08] Latreace: not a priority. We

[01:16:10] Latreace: don’t need a big birthday and let’s, is a milestone Valentine’s Day. Okay, we’re not doing anything big anniversary and New Year’s. And so we had to not, not saying sacrifice, that’s a strong word, but we had to compromise on what mattered to us right now.

[01:16:28] Latreace: We didn’t say no, we just said, what do you wanna spend your money?

[01:16:31] Latreace: Because it do, if you counted 10 years of doing this. It started when we first got married. ’cause we were together for years before we got married. When we start, when we first got married, let’s do this. We did this last year and realized, uh, let’s cut it down and still have the experience, but be mindful of how much we’re spending. And so that’s what we did. That’s what we’re doing this upcoming year. And again, it’s not, it’s just you have to look at your finances and say, I want to retire. We need to have extra money. We have to pay off our cars. You know, those kinds of things. So,

[01:17:00] Latreace: I mean, we’ve got two cars that are paid off and I’m, he just paid off his and I’m paying off mine. To me, success is that for us, based on where we were some years ago and where we are now, having four, having four cars that are paid off by January the first, 2026. To me is important because

[01:17:19] Latreace: that means all of our cars, we don’t have car notes, right? We just have

[01:17:22] Latreace: insurance and we’re not driving my 2006 Toyota.

[01:17:25] Latreace: That’s still ticking. I’m happy about that, but that bad boy is paid off. So at the end of the day, we have an extra car when family members come. ’cause that’s important to us.

[01:17:36] Latreace: If you fly in, we don’t have to take you everywhere in Nashville. The traffic’s too bad. You can take one of these cars and drive it and that way we’re

[01:17:44] Latreace: all happy. It’s a win-win for all. So again, like

[01:17:47] Josh: I love that.

[01:17:48] Latreace: in your household,

[01:17:50] Latreace: what matters to you, what your financial freedom looks like. And it does mean for us having, having meals, having a date night, but also we recognize we have to prepare for ready days and have a small emergency funding, you know, and then all the things you know you need to have, but we didn’t get to this point overnight.

[01:18:08] Latreace: It’s taken time to get here and some honest and crucial conversation.

[01:18:13] Josh: yeah. ladies, this has just been an absolutely phenomenal conversation and it just, it makes me so happy that, there’s people like you out there that are really this kind of like, relentlessly focused on trying to help people. because we’re all examples of that, you know, that story.

[01:18:32] Josh: And there’s a lot of people out there that need their story to be a more positive one.

[01:18:37] Josh: And, you know, I, I talk about it often on the podcast, whether we like it or not, money is, it’s part of life.

[01:18:44] Josh: It’s not going anywhere, right? And so if we can help people to have a more freeing life because of the financial position they’re in, it’s a pretty cool gift to give people.

[01:18:57] Josh: And if all we have to do is provide some education that can at least help down that path, it’s a pretty big impact. So it’s really cool to see, you know, what you ladies are doing in that. But before I let you go, I do have two final questions for you, if you don’t mind. so maybe Latrice will start with you. Where do you go to get information? Like where do you stay up to date on what’s happening?

[01:19:18] Latreace: Experience.

[01:19:21] Josh: Hashtag shameless plug.

[01:19:24] Latreace: I mean, I do, I just told you earlier in the conversation about, you know, I get information a lot. Listen, I do. And I, and I’m a, I’m a news junkie, so I mean, I read a lot of articles, but again, I have to go back and make sure they’re cre credible, reliable resource, reliable sources. but I do get a lot of my information.

[01:19:39] Latreace: And then of course, through our program,

[01:19:41] Latreace: home for USA partnership with CFA, again, I read a lot, but I do get a lot from Experian in terms of my, how, my outlook on the financial services piece. yeah, so. Yeah, that’s where I get a lot of my information from.

[01:19:54] Josh: And if people want to connect with you and have a

[01:19:57] Latreace: would like to connect with me, you can reach out to, career planning@fisk.edu, and or lWells@fisk.edu directly. my phone number is (615) 329-8896. That’s not

[01:20:12] Latreace: my cell, that is

[01:20:13] Josh: I was gonna say, I’m like, wow, I think you’re the first podcast guest ever to drop a cell. She wants to talk.

[01:20:20] Latreace: number. Then you can

[01:20:23] Christina: Oh my, geez, that was good.

[01:20:25] Josh: That was awesome.

[01:20:28] Latreace: to learn more about Fisk University, and then you can go into our career plan development site, which has all of our programs, and the Center for Financial Advancement is on that site.

[01:20:38] Josh: Awesome. Christina, what about you? Where do you go to get information?

[01:20:44] Christina: Yeah, so I subscribe to industry newsletters. I have a newsletter that serves up, you know, top headlines every day in the industry. read American Banker, but I also really like to listen to podcasts. I love doing podcasts. I love, you know, that we got to be on the digital banking podcast. I find that that’s just a great way to consume financial education.

[01:21:06] Christina: I have ’em playing in the background. I used to have a long drive to work, so I would listen to them every morning on the drive to work. some of my other favorites are, the second Benjamin Podcast, Joe Saul Cihi. I, I just love the conversational aspect of talking about money very similar to this.

[01:21:21] Christina: It’s a long podcast, a lot of different components to it, but, they’re sharing vital information directed toward consumers. And so I like to know from the consumer aspect, what do they wanna learn about? What are they hearing about? what are other, financial influencers talking to ’em about?

[01:21:36] Christina: And these are financial influencers that, you know, they, they’re vetted, that they give really good information, in their podcast. And then, the yo ro, I have to shout out my girl, Janice Torres. I just love, she’s fiery passionate about financial literacy and education and empowering women and empowering minority communities.

[01:21:55] Christina: And I love that about her. And so I just think that’s a really, another really fun way. She’s really peppy in her podcast and, She’s just a great, great person to listen to. So I love consuming the, that podcast. But, that’s where I go primarily to get a lot of my information.

[01:22:12] Josh: And then if people want to connect with you or if they wanna learn more about Experian, how can they do that?

[01:22:17] Christina: Yeah, definitely check out experian.com for a lot of our educational resources, our free consumer tools, like our Experian credit monitoring. Um, we have a savings tool. I know that we talked about, like people don’t realize where all their money is going. So we actually have a savings tool that can tell you you subscribe to this many, uh, services each month.

[01:22:37] Christina: Maybe it’s something that you should look into to, reduce your costs monthly or to reduce your bills. we have a credit, insur credit and insurance marketplace that consumers can look into for ways to save, on credit and potentially their insurance. so it was a great place to start, but I’m also on, LinkedIn.

[01:22:54] Christina: You can find me at Christina Roman on LinkedIn. Look at, look Me Up, under Experian. And then also every week we host a financial literacy conversation on X called Credit Chat. This chat has been going since 2012, but it’s a weekly conversation and, we bring together a panel of experts to talk about a variety of financial topics.

[01:23:14] Christina: So this past week we just talked about, um, bankruptcy. Next week we’re gonna talk about national cybersecurity awareness. And I know this may not air. In that timeframe, but that’s just to give you an idea of what we talk about. We, it’s a variety of topics. It’s an hour long conversation on X and so you can find me there every Wednesday at three o’clock eastern time, 12 o’clock Pacific.

[01:23:35] Christina: chatting about a financial order C topic. You can follow me on x follow at Experian on X, and you’ll likely see my face pop up there as well.

[01:23:44] Josh: That’s awesome. Well, ladies, again, thank you so much, uh, for just spending your time with me to talk, to share ideas and experiences and thank you for the work that you’re doing in the communities. And thanks for coming and being a guest on the Digital Banking podcast.

[01:24:00] Christina: Thank you. This was a really fun podcast.

[01:24:03] Josh: I know. I was like, man, I. Can, can all Fridays start like this? That’s kind of a fun way to start a Friday.

[01:24:10] Latreace: My feel good Friday.

[01:24:11] Josh: I got

[01:24:11] Josh: like the energy from YouTube going. I’m like, all right, I hope we can get some work done. I feel great.

[01:24:16] Latreace: Thanks for having us.

[01:24:17] Josh: No, this

[01:24:17] Josh: was a blast. Thank you both.

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