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Speaker 1: We're going to be doing a live stream that I

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think you're definitely going to want to listen to watch.

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It's going to be on February eleventh at noontime. If

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you want to attend that, you want to notify us,

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we'll get you the invitation.

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Speaker 2: You are listening to Carrie Leutz's Financial Survival Network, where

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you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else

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to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial

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Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork

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dot com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial

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Survival Network now more than ever.

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Speaker 1: And welcome. You are listening to the Financial Survival Network.

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I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. And well, the holidays are over,

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the new year has come, and the holiday hangover, the

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holiday debt hangover is just getting started. And well, our

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good friend Paul Loster from Better Qualified is with us now.

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And Paul, what t is different about this holiday hangover

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season than most?

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Speaker 3: Well, as you know Kerry, again, you and I have

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probably had this very same discussion for the past. It

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could be five years or more. I think time is

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He's crazy. But this year, look, we've as a country,

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as an individual, as a world, We've never been in

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this geopolitical economic environment ever before. And I don't care

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what the stock markets are doing. I don't care about

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tariffs or anything like that. What we see are the

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average everyday consumers are definitely starting to drown in their debt.

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They're not treading water anymore. The early canaries and the

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coal mine are always credit card delinquencies, auto delinquencies. Then

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you have your pre foreclosures, mortgage lates are coming in,

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so all of those signs are now pointing towards again

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the average consumer is drowning in their own debt. And

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when you have the cost of living, this crazy stubborn inflation,

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all of these things and now weakening job market. All

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of these things are going to add up sooner than later.

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And you know, they do a great job at spinning

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it so it doesn't look as bad as it is.

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Again in our day to day life, we see consumer struggling.

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So going into the holidays, there were surveys out there

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that said over eighty percent of consumers we're already thinking

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and conceding about using credit cards to get them through

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the holidays. I think that number went well into the

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ninety percentile. And when you now add in these buy now,

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pay later programs, I think we're in trouble, you know,

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moving forward, it's starting to come home and starting to

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hit them very, very hard in the pocketbook and the

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wallet because now they have to pay for these things,

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and it could have you know, a lot of consumers

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make the mistake of using fuzzy mental math. Yeah, I

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think I'll be able to make four payments of seventy

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five dollars moving forward. But could they really do that

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while paying the minimums on all their other credit cards,

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while paying more for every tank of gas, for every

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grocery run. The cost, you know, the cost of living

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has just spiraled out of control and the income has

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not adjusted accordingly. So we're in trouble.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I tend to agree with you. And you know,

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when I was a kid, I was on the buy now,

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pay never plan.

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Speaker 3: Well, listen, and again, I don't know how long these

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companies are going to be around because they're default rates

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are also spiraling out of control. So the big dogs

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affirm Klarna, you know, their year over year defaults are

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you know, rising exponentially. So what ultimately happens here and

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the other thing is consumers don't realize that these buy now,

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pay later programs, which all you have to do is

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prove that you're not a bot. You click and I'm

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not a robot, and you're going to get approved almost instantly.

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And what happens is every time you use one of

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those payment plans, they now get reported on your credit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah I heard that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so even if you make all the payments on

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time and complete the loan, opening up all of these

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new accounts in a short period of time is damaging

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to your overall credit. The fight Go scoring model does

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not like to see lots of new open accounts in

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a short period of time. What happens is that the

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scoring model says, why does Kerry Lutts need access to

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all of these new lines of credit? And again it's scary.

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It drops the score. Yeah, it drops the scores. And

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now if they actually start to make late payments, it

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becomes even worse.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well late payments are really bad.

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Speaker 3: Huh yeah. Listen, you know, people again they don't realize.

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You know, there's there's five factors that go into the

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scoring model. Nobody knows the exact the exact formula and

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algorithm But what we do know is payment history is

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number one, and rightfully so pay all your bills on time.

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You're going to have a higher score than someone who

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doesn't pay all their bills on time. But what consumers

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need to realize when I speak to someone they say, yeah, well,

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you know, my credit's pretty good. I have some late payments.

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I already know they're probably in the five hundred, if

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not lower, because one thirty day lay payment can easily

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drop your score fifty points. Now, if you're a younger

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person with a thin credit profile, that damage could be

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even worse if you max out a credit If you

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max out a credit card by one dollar, you could

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easily lose fifty points if you go over. The second

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factor for our credit scores is called your utilization ratio. Income,

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fortunately or unfortunately is not a factor. The Fyco scoring

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model doesn't care how much money you make. What they

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care about is how much money, how much credit you

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have access to, and how much of that you're using.

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So to give you an example, let's say you have

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two credit cards and the credit limits are five hundred

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bucks apiece. You have a total credit limit of one

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thousand dollars. The second you go over. If your balances

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go over three hundred bucks, your sures are going to

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start to come down, and they're going to come down fast.

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Speaker 1: Mmm. Yeah, and then and then the fund begins huh

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yes sir, So all right, so I didn't even realize.

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But when you do buy and now pay later, you

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don't take possession of the goods till later after you paid, right.

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Speaker 3: No, so unfortunately you you can take the goods right

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at the point of sale. And these are happening with

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online merchants and online purchasing. So as soon as you

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say that you want to buy a widget on Amazon,

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on any online retailer, and they give you the option, Hey, Kerry,

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how would you like to pay zero percent and pay

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this off in four or five payments, people say yeah,

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and literally again, the approval process takes seconds, and then

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you get the goods will be delivered. Your widget's coming,

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It's going to be delivered in the mail. Now are

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you are you really in position? Did you actually sit

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down put a pen to paper or did you use

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your computer? Can I really afford this? And again, what

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happens is these marketing geniuses have created it. They're now

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thinking about using buy now pay laters for rent payments,

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carry rent payments. So that's how does that happen?

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Speaker 1: That's completely insane here, Well, there should be a law

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against this. I mean, I hate to say that I'm

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a capitalist, but to me, you know, it's no better

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than a kid, an eighteen year old kid or seventeen

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year old kid taking out the student loans. You know,

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they have no idea of the potential future impact of

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those loans, do they. Now, it's exactly right.

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Speaker 3: Very unfortunately, very few families actually sit down and have

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that conversation before they actually apply. Because what happens, and

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it happened to me, you could get approved for above

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and beyond what your expenenses actually are, the cost of tuition, housing, books,

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throw that all in and let's say it's, you know,

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for an easy loan number conservatively, let's say it's twenty

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thousand a year. You might actually get approved for thirty

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thousand dollars a year. Yeah, sure, and you and your

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parents might say, hey, we're going to take it because

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at five percent interest or seven you know, that's a

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good you know, that's a great interest rate, and I'm

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going to take that money. Okay, you graduate, and your

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hopes and dreams don't materialize and you don't get the

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job that you wanted. And the deferment on student loans

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is only six months, and that's that's less than a

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blink of an eye. So now you have, as we

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see right now, tens of millions of student loan borrowers

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who can't pay the loans back, right, And that's the

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situation now, Like you're saying, should it, should we change

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the process? Absolutely? It's like health care and insurance. How

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how did we even get here?

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Speaker 1: How?

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Speaker 3: How has the cost of tuition exceeded every other you know,

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marker in the economy. It's just it's out of control.

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But we have student loan lenders who are willing to

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pay those exorbitant costs, but at the end of the day,

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who can really afford it? You know, twenty five percent

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of the overall student loan portfolio is either in long

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firm delinquency or they've defaulted.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable.

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Speaker 3: And so Belie, there's good news is the good news

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is this carrier. And again I've said it on your

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show numerous times, it's never too late to put a

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plan in place to figure this out. No one goes

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to debt or prison. But debt is something you have

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to deal with squared away head on. You can't just

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bury your head in the sand and hope for the best.

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No one's going to swoop in and save you. It

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just doesn't happen. So how do you get out of debt? Well,

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it takes some planning, It takes discipline, It takes commitment.

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Unless you're going to get a windfall of an inheritance

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or you know where's the money going to come from,

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we have to cut expenses and that takes again discipline

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and commitment. And I'm not saying you have to do

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it for the rest of your life, or maybe you do.

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But right now, if you have any credit card debt

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at all, you have to put a spending freeze, a

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new debt. Don't spend another dime on anything that's not essential,

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and don't blore the lines. Essential is gas and groceries.

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Essential might be gas and less groceries or different groceries

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than you normally buy. Yeah, noore call foods right right,

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a skit. You can skip hotlier than thou foods. All right,

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So Paul, looking ahead here for the year. You know,

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here all these economists saying things are getting better, the

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economy is improving, incomes are going up.

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Speaker 1: What effect do you think that's going to have on

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the credit out there? You think that's going to hurt

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your business?

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Speaker 3: No, absolutely not so people. You know, I've been doing

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this for twenty one years, and the market goes up,

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the market goes down, it's stays stagnant. It doesn't really

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matter because you know, your personal finances are so you know,

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different than the macro economy and the global landscape. So

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what's happening right now is the pressure from very very

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stubborn inflation the cost of goods and services. You know,

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it's we're just not keeping up with the increases in

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what it costs for us to live, so that that

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the cost of living adjustment for our personal finances has

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just not been able to keep up with it. So

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then people they get on that slippery slope, and debt

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is the most slippery slope there is, so they start,

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you know, their credit card balances start going up, which

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drives their credit scores down, which then winds up costing

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them more for everything else. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So, so really it doesn't matter what's going on in

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the broad economy, even if the economy is improving, and

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their incomes go up, their debt went up, and their

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credit score is going down. So they want that new

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house or whatever it is, it's either going to cost

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them more or it's going to be unobtainable exactly.

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Speaker 3: So what you just said, you know, your credit score

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is going to cost or save you money every single

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day for the saane things that we need, you know,

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all of the things being equal, if you have a

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lower credit score, you're going to pay more because in

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the finance world, it's all tiered based pricing, So people

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that have lower credit scores are going to pay more

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and more and more. And I don't know, you know,

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how quickly if there's a short term situation where you know,

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they're talking about this credit card interest cap and I

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don't know if that was just food for fodder, but

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banks get very very sketchy, very very quickly. So do

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they start to tighten, you know, if they start to chaten,

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you know, the credit market, then it'll have the reverse

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impact of what people thought it was going to be

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a good thing. But what will happen is if you're

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below a seven hundred credit score, you're not even going

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to get approved. So then it's going to cut out

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a tremendous amount of people who want to buy a

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mortgage and right now they could afford it, but they're

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not going to get approved. There'll be no programs available

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for people unless you have an a rating for your

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for your personal credit.

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Speaker 1: Gotcha, gotcha. So so really it's going to make credit

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harder to obtain. Well, they must know this.

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Speaker 3: Right, yes, yep. No, the you know the average where

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they find out when they actually go to apply, and

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so they find out too late. So really our goal

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is to try and get the message out there. And

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it's it's like insurance. It's like asking for an umbrella

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when it's raining. You have to have this in place beforehand.

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You can't you know, find out in the in the

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eleventh hour and the ninth inning that you're not going

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to get approved because there's no overnight fixes for credit.

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It takes time to rebuild, it takes time to manage it,

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It takes time to demonstrate that you are credit worthy,

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especially if you had hiccups in the past and you

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and I spoke earlier today. It's not not always just

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about mismanaging finances. There are life events that happen. The

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number one cause for bankruptcy is still health, right, people

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get sick, People get sick and they have to claim bankruptcy.

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That's still the number one reason to this day loss

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of jobs. So look at the job market, look at AI.

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You know, the corporations are laying off people left and right.

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So all of those things have an impact on the

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average person who unfortunately didn't have the resources in place,

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and they you know, they have to crash. So it's

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not always about mismanaging. It's not always about the economy.

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It's not you know, the personal impact of things that happen.

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Life events are probably the number one cause for people

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to you know, mispayments and I've said this before on

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your show. A one times thirty day ly payment can

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cost you fifty points. So you could have been in

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the arena to get approved with a decent interest rate

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and you lose fifty points. If you go over your

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credit limit on a credit card by one dollar, you

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could lose fifty points. A medical collection pops up on

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your credit report, you could lose one hundred points. So

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you know, people have to be aware and be aware

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of what's happening with their credit. And I'll mention this

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again because it's worth mentioning. One of the good things

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that came out of the pandemic was our ability to

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check our credit at Manualcreditreport dot com. You can now

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check it every week BC. Before COVID, you could only

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check it once a year, So now you could literally

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monitor your credit for free. By the way, and this

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is not like a credit karma situation or anything crazy

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like that where you're going to get telemarketed to death

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spamming text messages. This is the government's website host it

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on the by the FTC and those are good reports

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and good information, So you can go there once a

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week and check it. And you should be looking for

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red flags of identity theft. If there are addresses that

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are on that report that you don't recognize, that's the

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number one red flag for identity theft. So look at

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your reports and figure out how you can get your

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scores as high as you possibly can.

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Speaker 1: I can't agree with you more. So, Look, we're going

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to be doing a live stream that I think you're

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definitely going to want to listen to watch. It's going

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to be on February eleventh at noontime. If you want

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to attend that, you want to notify us, we'll get

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you the invitation. Just send an email to kl at

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Carrie LUTs dot com. That's kl at Carrie LUTs dot com.

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We'll get you up there the meantime. Paul, just to

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give us your web address and how we connect with

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you on the web.

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Speaker 3: Please, Yeah, that's the easiest way to find us. And

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it's better qualified dot com. Again, it's better Qualified dot com.

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As always, we provide a free credit consultation and analysis.

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We can tell you exactly what to do and what

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not to do and allow our expertise and twenty over

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twenty years of guidance to help you love it.

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Speaker 1: And that's why we're having you on. That's why we're

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doing this. All of you listening who are on my

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email list, you'll get a notification of it. I don't

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like to bog you down with too many, but I'll

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send you at least one within forty eight hours of

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when it's going to happen. And then you can just

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click into it and sign up. And I think it's

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really going to be informative. Paul's going to be talking

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about things you could do without him right now immediately

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to raise your score fifty point points almost immediately. I

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think it'll be real helpful. Paul, we will talk to

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you in a week. Thank you so much for coming

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on and we will be in touch.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me back on Kerry, Thanks for listening

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to carry Letz's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's

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trying times. For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com.

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Financial Survival Network now more than ever,