That Time We Talked About Credit Repair

And a three, two, one.

This is episode number 101 of the Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Homeowner Show. We're glad that you could join us this evening.

That's right.

I mean, the show's gonna come out in the morning, but we record it in the evening.

In case—

we're just gonna pull back the curtain for you guys right here and just let you know that we don't— the show's not in the morning, all right?

In case you didn't know, this is a prerecorded show.

That's right.

And guess when we have time to prerecord shows? In the evening.

Evening. Why?

Because we have lives and because we have children.

Right.

So those things—

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Do what you will, people.

That's right. I mean, live your best life.

That's exactly right.

So anyway, mine just happened to involve children and work and, you know, things outside of this podcast.

Yeah, you and I are similar in that. So, but what's new, man?

Dude, it's been, it's been a weird customer week.

A weird customer week, which means it's gonna be story time.

It's a little story time. Yeah, so there's, there's, there's, there's 2 kinds of customers I run into and One is suspicious, and then the other is forgetful.

Oh, well, where do I fit? Because I'm one of your customers.

You're fine.

Oh, OK.

I'm talking about problem children, is what we're talking about right now. Oh, OK.

Yeah.

My first one was suspicious, and that's always fun. A lot of people don't realize that when I walk up to take care of it, they don't realize that I'm the owner.

Oh, yeah.

And so they tend to talk to me as if I'm an employee of this corporation that has executives in Iowa or something, and I don't really understand what's going on.

They just think you're a worker, someone out beating the streets, doing what you do.

Which is fine, which is actually great, because I want to know how people are treating my employees.

Sure.

And so it's good that I have similar experiences to them. This one was just weird because it was probably a little old lady in her late 70s. Um, and one, I mean, like, just to like timestamp this particular episode, we're like in the middle of Corona.

Yeah.

And so the, the protocol for us has been with my guys is like, look, if you're going to the door, put your mask on, you know, put your gloves on and just be respectful of, you know, the customer and it's their property. You don't know how they feel about this. And also it's just safe for you. Put your mask on.

Yeah.

So I'm all masked up and gloved up and I go to the door and she comes to the door, no mask on. Barefooted. And I'm just like, okay. So we, we start having this conversation and she goes, well, do you, do you wanna, you wanna come inside and spray the house first? Or do you want to just, how do you wanna do this? And I said, well, do you want me to spray the inside? And, and she kind of looks at me cockeyed and she goes, oh, I know. Why wouldn't I want the inside sprayed?

Yeah, I, I know where this is going.

And you know, my typical response to this is like, well, there's a lot of customers that I have that don't like pesticides inside their home. And so I like to make sure that they know that they have the option to not have that done if they don't want to. And she's like, well, that's ridiculous. Oh, why would I want half a service?

Oh.

And I'm like, well, ma'am, it's not half a service. You still get the same warranty. You still get the same service. You still get the same treatment. We're going to get rid of the bugs. We just don't necessarily have to come inside to do it. And she's like, well, if I'm paying— and she said the price— and if I'm paying that amount of money, Why should I only get half? I mean, if you only did the outside, I don't even know if I'd want to pay for half of this.

Oh.

And I'm like, well, that's fine, and I don't want you to feel like you're being taken advantage of.

I said, all of a sudden you've put yourself in the driver's seat because you're like, I can leave if that's what you really want right now. I'm out.

And, and then it just became this sort of back and forth and like I was like, look, I'm happy to come inside and do the inside if that's what you want me to do.

Right.

And it was, and then it just became, well, I just need to rethink this.

Hmm. Okay.

That's fine. She goes, I'll give you a call if I, if I make any decision. I'm like, okay. So I went back to the truck and I called my office and I said, listen, here's what's going to happen. If this lady calls, we're booked. I'm not making another water haul here for her to waste my time or anybody else's time.

Yeah. And like, let's, let's be clear to our listeners because I had this very same conversation with your dad, who is a co-owner, the original owner of the company.

Yeah.

And, and when, when I first met him, um, I— we were— I wasn't interviewing him to come and do pest control. I knew him outside of that. And so he— I was like, yeah, you know, we're about to buy a house, we'd really like you to come over and spray. And he said, well, We're happy to do that, but we don't really spray the inside of houses anymore.

Right.

And I said, what are you talking about? I've never heard of that because every pest control company that we've ever used comes inside, does their thing. And he said, well, listen, here's the thing. And you could probably explain this better than, than I could, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Okay.

He said, here's the thing. Where, where do you want the bugs to live? And I said, I don't really want them to live. I want them to die. He said, okay, well, I understand that, but if they're going to live, which they are, which they are, where do you want them to live? And I said, somewhere besides my house. And he said, that's what I expected you to say. Now, what we do is we spray outside so they never get inside.

Right.

And he said, if we spray outside, then there's no way they can cross that barrier without dying. We spray a certain number of feet outside the house and a certain number of feet up the house, and then they can't get into your house. Therefore, you have no bugs. I went, genius! Come spray my house, please!

It's less exposure. That was problem child No.

1.

Problem child No. 2 was a whole different ballgame. It was someone that had actually previously used our services. And when it was, it was, they'd only want just one time before. And then, you know, like, hey, we want to get on the schedule. Please come out for a regular. So today was the day. And so I had to call her on the phone because it's one of those automated gated places.

Who lives in those places?

Hoity-toity jerks. That's who. Yeah, exactly.

Jerks.

Um, by the way, I live in one of those places, which is why it's still accurate. Um, but anyway, so I get this lady on the phone and like, hey, I'm outside at the gate. I just need, need to come in so I can take care of the property. And she's like, oh, we don't, we don't want you to come in.

Oh.

I'm like, oh, okay, I'm sorry, what's, what's going on? She's like, well, last time you were here, after you came, the ants just got worse. And I'm like, really? That's interesting. And so I pull up my notes and I immediately remember the conversation. And I said, well, ma'am, if you recall, um, I didn't come to treat ants last time. In fact, it was something completely different. We made a note here that I had let you know that I couldn't treat for ants because the interior of the house was so messy.

They're everywhere.

If the interior of the house hadn't been addressed, it really wouldn't be surprising if the ants increased. She's like, well, we just really weren't happy with the service because the ants got worse.

No, I know. We fully expected that was going to happen. Wow!

I hate having those conversations, especially when I've been there, but you have to be honest with someone. The reason you're having a problem is because there's jelly all over the counter. At the same time, I'm sympathetic. Look, I see. I noticed that there are 3 rugrats running through this house, and you had to make lunch. It's difficult, especially right now. now when there's no school and all this stuff's going on. I get it. But like, I can't help you if what— because what you're gonna put out is way more attractive than anything I can help them get over, right? Or bait or any of that kind of stuff. Because, you know, anyway, it can be a much longer conversation, but like, it's just, it's just always interesting to me, the personality type and the way that they

end up treating service people that come into their home.

Mm-hmm.

And again, like, she probably has no idea that like I'm the owner of Right.

She thinks you're some punk that's just showing up to spray her house.

Right.

Which you are.

I am. But they think that— it's weird, man. They think that they can talk to you a different way. I understand that. Because I've actually had it happen several times— not several times— where someone has just a bee in their bonnet about something and was like, well, I just need to call and talk to the manager. I'm like, well, you, you can, but he's going to ask me what to do.

Right. The, the manager is one step below.

Yeah. So I mean, like, you're at the top of the food chain here.

You got the man. Well, and so like, I, I think that the thing that a lot of people need to understand, and this is, this is helpful information for our listeners right now, like People like, like you in this service, they're going to warranty— if they're any— if they're worth their salt, they're going to warranty the, the service that they provide, right? And so if you walk in there and you say, listen, I'll treat the ants, well, guess what's going to happen? She's going to call back and she's going to say, listen, the ants are getting worse. I need you to come out and bait them again, right? And all of a sudden you're just throwing money at something that you know you

cannot fix. So there's no point in doing that. So I think for our listeners, one of the things you One of the smartest things you can do is to ask better questions. We preach this all the time. Ask better questions. A better question is, can you help me understand how to get rid of these ants?

Yeah.

And you say, yes, absolutely. I can treat them, but first, we've got another issue we need to solve. At that point, it's not contentious. Nobody's mad. Nobody's upset. If you wind up telling me something I don't like, We can deal with that, but you at least asked the intelligent question.

Yeah.

So, man, that's, that's tough. Customers can be difficult.

Well, yeah, and then they, you know, especially when they have just certain ideas in their head as to the way things ought to be done. Sure. And that's, and that's fine because it's their property. They don't have to do things the way that I would suggest. There's lots of other companies out there. I think there's like 36,000 of us in the Houston area. Is that it? That's just Houston, by the way. Oh, okay, okay.

Well, I think that really leads us into our conversation that we're going to have today. So because I assume that the guest that we have on our show today has some pretty particular customers that they're going to be dealing with and have a way that they think this should go, most likely they're going to be like, uh, we have a better way.

And we should learn a lot about Kevin and I tonight because this is absolutely a subject that I think neither one of you Neither one of us know hardly anything about.

Thankfully not!

I don't mean the repair part of it. I mean just broadly in general.

It's a big subject, that's for sure.

Everybody that we bring in that talks about real estate, it always comes up, and none of us end up knowing what we're talking about. As long as we know that it's good. We're not going to bait it anymore. We've got our friend Mason Miller in the studio here to talk about— he does credit repair, but we can talk about all things credit tonight, I'd imagine. Okay.

Oh yeah.

So good. So, so tell us a little bit about your business, what you do and how you got started into it.

So, um, I own, you know, BWI Credit Solutions. Um, we do credit repair, uh, credit building, um, you know, tips and tricks and pointers for all of our clients for their credit, how to, you know, build a thick file, um, do business credit. We do funding, um, all good things like that.

Yeah.

All the fun stuff.

So, and when do, people typically come to you, I mean, like obviously if you're doing credit repair, it's because their credit's not great, but I would imagine there's—

There's other things. So maybe they need a little boost, um, in their credit score. Maybe they're trying to qualify for a better rate, um, get into a different bracket or something like that. So, uh, we can always get in there. We can add like history to their file, um, add some age to their file, you know, add some trade lines, stuff like that. So it literally, there's just tons of possibilities. You know, well, and so many things we can do.

Just, just real quick. So, so we, we understand a little bit about this, like what distinguishes a good credit score from a bad? So like, how many different categories are we talking about here as far as good and bad?

Um, really about 4 different categories. So you have below 600, which is, you know, bad. Um, 600 to 650, which is, I guess you'd say average or below average. 650 to 700 is probably, you know, more average than regular. Um, and then 700+ is good.

Okay.

So, um, you know, 700 to 750, your rates really aren't gonna get much better. Um, really anything over 750, you're good. You've got great credit. So awesome. Yeah.

And, and as far as like, let's just call it most of America, like where, where is the, the median credit score? Or do you even know?

Mid-600s. Really?

Yeah.

So, and, and about 75 to 80% of Americans have inaccurate information on their credit report and have no idea.

Really?

That's crazy. Yeah.

3/4. So if there was another person in this room, 3 of us would have inaccurate information.

Goodness. Well, it's very, very possible that even people with good credit have inaccurate information.

Is that true? Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, it could be something as small as an indicator, like maybe a bad address or something. But if it's an address on there that you've never lived in, that could be a sign of possible identity theft. And so it's definitely something you want to take care of.

Okay. Is there ever an instance— and this is just where my weird brain goes— is there ever an instance where inaccurate information on your credit report is a good thing?

No.

Okay.

No.

So it couldn't be like, he had, you know, $20,000 worth of credit line at something?

I've never, you know, a good positive, like, trade line on a credit report that's not yours, you have no idea where it's come from, never come across that.

Okay.

if it happened and, you know, and you're like, you know, it helps your credit and I guess it's possible, but I've never seen that.

That's going to come out though, right? At some point it's going to come out and all of a sudden you're going to be screwed because it's not accurate.

Or whoever does own that account, let's say they miss a payment, you know? Yeah.

So, hmm.

Wow.

Then you're, you're, you're really in bad shape.

Yeah. And if you've taken care of your credit and then somebody that you don't even know misses a payment, I mean, a late payment, That's about 30, depending on the FICO score you're looking at, that's roughly 35% of your score, 30 to 35% of your score. So one missed payment can tank you.

Okay, so, and real quick, what does FICO stand for?

FICO is the Fair Isaac Corporation.

Okay.

Um, and so they were the first credit score, they were the first, uh, corporation to, um, rate Americans on their credit.

Huh. So, so is that, is that, I mean, that's just their business, that's what they do?

Yeah, and so they actually charge, like if you were to go pull your FICO FICO, they're going to charge you as a consumer to pull your FICO.

Okay.

And so per, um, every time you collect that data, they're going to charge you for it.

Okay, well, well, that, that brings us up to a whole new set of things here for a moment, because there's websites out there like freecreditreport.com, and I can get a free credit report, right?

So you're entitled to one credit report every year.

Okay.

So that's what they do. Freecreditreport.com gives you your free credit report for that year.

For that year?

Yeah, exactly.

And if you need it past that, you're You're going to wind up—

yeah. Like I check my credit, you know, at least every 30 days.

Okay.

And so there's, you know, there's paid, um, subscriptions that you can be a part of. Like, you know, I like Experian, the Experian app, um, $30 a month. And, you know, you've got all your information there. I mean, it's every 90 days, but still. Um, and then there's other ones. There's MyFICO. MyFICO is every 30 days and check your FICO scores through there, but you know, you're paying them $30 a month. And they're paying a dollar and some change for your FICO score. So it's a racket.

Oh yeah, of course. So I've got a credit card that reports my credit to me, but it's probably just an indicator. It's probably not—

Is it Capital One?

It's Capital One.

Is it CreditWise?

It is CreditWise.

Okay, so that's your Vantage. That's your Vantage score. And so Vantage came along after FICO. FICO, was founded in the early '70s, and then Vantage came around, I believe, in the early '90s. I could be wrong. Um, Vantage is a free credit score, and so they pull the same data from your creditors, but it's a free score.

Okay.

And so that's why, like, you know, I get it all the time. Hey, my Credit Karma says I'm a 700, but my FICO is 580. Why is that? And I'm like, well, it's the difference between Vantage and FICO. You know, they're— they have different algorithms and There's, uh, there's 10 different FICO scores. They just rolled out FICO 10 this year. Um, so depending on what FICO score you're looking at, you know, it can vary pretty, pretty drastically. Like, you know, if you've never owned a home before and you go look at your FICO home score, which is either 2 or 5, and you go in there, you've never owned a home, it's going to be lower than your other FICOs because

there's not a home reporting on your credit report.

Oh, so there's, there's a whole separate credit report that people are going to look at when you're going to buy for mortgages, for auto loans, credit cards, bank loans, all All of that, yeah. Okay. Does anyone use the Vantage one?

I would say about 90% of lenders are going to use your FICO. Most lenders are going to use your FICO.

Okay.

Well, let's step back for just a minute.

Kevin needs to take a breath and realize that my credit report is not accurate or usable.

We can check it out, man. We can check it out.

Well, I'm not really concerned. I know I've got good credit. I don't know exactly where it is. you know, I know it's good enough that I'm not gonna be turned down for pretty much anything.

There you go.

That being said though, like, I know even looking at my credit-wise, I can see some almost different buckets that they say, you know, you're either low, fair, or high in this area or this area or this area. And it's things like credit history, it's things like The, the amount of money that you—

Utilization.

Yeah. So can you kind of talk through some of those categories that are important? And I think that's going to help us to kind of set a baseline between how you go from a bad credit place to a good credit place, because if you don't know what those things are, then you're going to be set up for failure. And here's a perfect example. I made a really dumb mistake that I thought was really smart at the time. Um, so when I applied for that Capital One card, it's, um, it's a Capital One Venture card, which gives—

Good card.

It's a great card. I get 2% on everything that I spend, and I can use it for travel. And that's a pretty broad brush, the travel indicates. So, um, when, when I, when I applied for it, I, you know, I just Filled out the application online and I get back, um, they want to give me $35,000 for a credit line.

There you go.

And, and I made a really stupid mistake.

What'd you do?

I said, I don't need that much, I only want $20,000.

And take as much as you can get.

Yeah. And so explain, explain why.

So the reason why, um, you always want as high of a credit limit as you can possibly get, because you can only use You can't only use it, but you should. That should be a rule of thumb. Never go over 30%. And so let's say you have a $30,000 credit limit. You can use $10,000 on that card without it affecting your credit score. So the more line of credit, the more access to money you have, and you're still keeping your balances low and you're making your payments on time. All of those things help calculate your credit score.

So really, this is, and I know this now, but I didn't know it at the time. The more that they're willing to give you, it's an indicator that your credit score is good, first of all, but it means that if I wanted to go put something crazy amount on my credit card, I could do it without affecting my credit score because I have a higher limit. So, let's talk about what some of those other categories are.

So, payment history and payment age are big ones, and they, you know, they're pretty much the same thing. So let's say you have a card, you've got, you know, you've had that card for 10 years, right? So the age of that card is 10 years, but there's also 10 years of history. And so if you've never missed a payment, that means you've made on-time payments for 120 months in a row. And so all of those things help your credit score, which is, we were talking about trade lines, how we can add history and add age to a report. It's basically the same premise. So what we are able to do is add you as an authorized user on a card. Like, let's say you're starting out, let's say 18 years old, you

have no credit, you never had a credit card. Okay, well, we can go and add you as an authorized user on some credit cards with age and history on them and an available line of credit. So low utilization, boom, you're gonna have a credit score.

So like, so like your parents, for example?

Exactly. Okay, exactly. And that's a big one. If you have— if you can leverage your family's credit, it's very easy. It is very easy. And so like, if, if you're a young listener, which I know probably there's not a lot of young listeners, but if you are or you need a boost, let's say you have, your wife has great credit and your credit is, you just never worked on it, which I get that a lot, especially with men. You know, women typically have better credit than men, you know, come on. So we're going to do what we're going to do, right?

We're irresponsible.

Yeah. We're, yeah. I'm not going to say that, but yeah. Um, so yeah. So, I mean, let's say your wife has excellent credit and she's got all these credit cards that she's been able to maintain since, you know, high school or college or whatever. You know, you've never established your credit, get your wife to add you on all those cards, just an authorized user. Call the American Express, Chase, you know, Capital One, whatever it is, call them, add you as an authorized user. Takes about 30-ish days, 30 to 60 days for that to report. So it'll show up on your credit report. But man, dude, the results are crazy. I've taken somebody from no credit to a 750 credit score.

Wow. That's amazing. Well, and it leads me into a place in that same bucket, which is I, I think that there's this idea out there that if you don't use a credit card, just close the account. And, and but what you're doing in that moment is you are taking that line of credit out. And so your overall number of how much credit you— or how much— not credit, how much you can spend goes down. And it plays into that overall percentage that we were talking about earlier.

And a lot of people I get the question all the time, how do I get an 800 credit score? Well, the best way to get an 800 credit score is to, A, not have any derogatory items on your credit report, of course. B, have more than 15 accounts open.

Hmm.

And so, uh, revolving accounts, so like a credit card, right? So have as many accounts open as you can possibly have, because I mean, if you think about it logically, that tells banks and other creditors that you're able to manage your money. You know, if you've got 15 different cards that you're making payments on time with, your utilization's low, your age is high, your payment history is perfect, everything is perfect on your credit, your credit report. I mean, why wouldn't they loan you money? You know, if you've got a quarter of a million dollars sitting in your pocket right now, an available line of credit and perfect payment history, 10 years of age, any bank in the world is going to loan you money.

Right. Yeah. And so like, I've got some credit cards. Well, let me take that back. I've got an account with some credit companies that I don't even have a card for anymore. Yeah, card expired. They don't even mail me cards.

Don't close it, shred the credit card.

Exactly. And at that point, what is it? I've got, I've got a line of credit with them. I can use it if I want to.

If you really need it, you can. Yeah, you can go into the store, you can call them if you really need it. Yeah, but, um, well, yeah, don't close it.

So then what is, what is this, uh, this thing with banks where if you go to apply for a bigger loan, they tell you not to open any new accounts. You know what I'm talking about?

They don't want to see that you're using your credit while you're in the— like, let's say you're trying to purchase a home, right? Right. The worst thing you can do is go buy a car while you're, you know, in, in the underwriting phase. Um, because that's going to hurt your credit temporarily. You know, it's not permanent, but temporarily it's going to hurt your credit score. And to the bank, If I'm going and I'm trying to purchase a half a million dollar home, and then I turn around and go buy a $100,000 Cadillac or something, that doesn't look very good on paper.

Yeah.

You know, and so you got to look at it from their eyes. You know, some people can do it. Um, you know, let's say I've got a paid-off mortgage on a $2.5 million property, and I'm trying to go purchase a half a million dollar house and, or maybe 2 half a million dollar houses. And then I go and I just want to buy a You know, nice car or whatever. Right. Yeah. They see on your credit report, you know, in the underwriting process that, okay, well that bank loaned him $2.5 million. He paid it off. No problem.

Yeah.

You know, but that's not typical. That's not everybody.

So how much of a hit do you take on your credit? Like when you, like, let's just, I assume a typical car is like, you know, $30,000. How big of a hit on your credit do you take?

It's not a lot, you know, 20, 30 points, but it's enough to drop you into another bracket.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, everybody's situation's different, but I just purchased a vehicle about back in April, late April, dropped my credit 25 to 30 points, and it's coming back up. After about 6 months, those, well, after 90 days, those inquiries don't affect your score anymore. After about 6 months, you're right back to where you were.

So it's an inquiry line item on your report that has, I guess, a date that it goes or expires?

Well, they stay on your report for 2 years.

Okay.

Um, but after 90 days, they don't affect your score.

Oh, okay.

Well, let me ask you this then. So I've currently got a vehicle that I've been looking at. Um, I'm— it's an old vehicle, so most places are not going to give me money to go buy an old vehicle, but I can take out a personal line of, of credit. And so Let's say I go in and I get $10,000 out to buy this vehicle. Would it— I mean, how much is that going to affect since it's different than a loan? I mean, it's a loan, but it's a personal loan versus a car loan.

It depends.

I mean, what are different loans different things?

Yes, yes. So like a credit card is gonna be a revolving account, and so that's when they're gonna factor utilization.

Okay.

And so if you take out a revolving line of credit, meaning if I take out $10,000, I use $5,000, I pay it back, now I have $10,000. You know, it's not your traditional installment, whereas an installment is I take out $10,000, now I have $10,000, and I pay all my payments and I pay it off, now it's gone.

Okay.

You know what I mean? Yeah, that it won't affect your— if you take out a personal loan, an installment loan, You'll be fine because there's no utilization.

Well, and on top of that, the only reason I would do that is so that I could purchase the vehicle now, sell the vehicle that I've currently got, at which point I would have the money to pay it off. Like, I'm thinking I might have this, this loan for a month, maybe 2, and then I'm paying it all back.

Yeah, you know, it's just a short-term loan.

Short-term loan, just gonna give me enough to, to have the purchasing power.

Just curious, what, what kind of vehicle are you looking at?

It's a Ford Expedition. No, and sorry, a Ford Excursion.

An older one?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, so it's like what year? It's a— the one that I'm looking at is a 2004 model. They only made 5 years of those, of the Excursions. They're a massive, massive vehicle. But since they made them— yeah, yeah, the tanks. But since they only made them for 5 years, they're kind of a commodity at this point. So they've got a It's weird because, um, they're worth more than most credit people think they're worth.

Really?

You know, so like, um, for example, it was the only SUV that's ever been built on a 3/4-ton chassis that is— that they make a diesel engine for. And so that in and of itself makes it very, very rare. So it's like anything, the more rare it is, the more it's worth.

Scarcity.

Its scarcity makes it worth more. So then you— I, I looked at one today, just kind of browsing, because I'm— I'd like to have one of these. Um, I looked today, it's a 2005, so it's the latest model that they made. Uh, it's a diesel engine, it's got 135,000— 137,000 miles on it. They want $25,000 for it.

Dang.

Now, whoever—

Hell, it's value.

Yeah, whoever, whoever buys that is an idiot, in my opinion. However, if that's what you want, and you're willing to pay the money, yeah, then it's worth every bit of that to you. So anyway, but you know, it's— if, if you want a certain thing, sometimes you have to have the buying power to go out and do it. Yeah, you know, for sure.

Absolutely.

Which, which, I mean, you can go do that, man, where you could just put the $100 down on the new Bronco.

Oh man, come on, get you a Cybertruck, man.

Come on. Well, so, so we've— Craig and I have actually talked about, you know, a couple of different battery-powered trucks.

And what was the one we were looking at the other day? The Badger?

The— yeah, the Badger.

Have you seen these?

No, I haven't.

So it's, it's kind of weird, man. It's at a company called Nikola.

Like Nikola Tesla?

Exactly.

Wow. Yeah.

And so apparently their big claim to fame is they came out with the very first electric semi-truck.

Uh-huh.

And so now they've teamed up and you, you knew who the dude was.

Yeah, it's Heavy D. Heavy D. Heavy D is a—

Heavy D and the Boys.

Yeah, yeah. Heavy D is a, um, Diesel Brothers. Yeah, um, he— they, they rebuild diesel vehicles and refurbish them, and then they wind up— right now, like, their big thing is they give away a vehicle every month.

Wow.

And, and you have to purchase, you know, a $5 purchase on their online store gets you an entry. And so the more you spend— yeah, it's a raffle. Yeah. And then they give away— like, right now they're in the middle of giving away a 2020 F-350. Dang. So they're giving it away and it's, it's jacked up.

$100,000 truck.

Oh, easy.

Yeah, it's easy $100,000 truck. They're, they're giving it away.

That's crazy.

So anyway, yeah, they partnered up with Nikola and developed this truck called the Badger, um, which is, I mean, like, what was it, like 0 to 60 in like 2.9 or something like that? It was ridiculous.

2.9 seconds. Yeah.

How big of a truck is it? How much does it weigh?

It's comparable to a half-ton pickup.

Okay.

Yeah, but it's got 900 and 950 foot-pounds of torque. And it's got like the, the towing capacity on this thing, it was like 7,000, 8,000, 7,000 or 8,000. No, no.

Yeah, those electric vehicles can tow like 15,000 pounds.

Oh really? That it'll tow.

Have you seen the, uh, the prototype for the, uh, Tesla 18-wheeler?

Yes. Yeah, this thing's ridiculous, man.

It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah. So anyway, I, one day, I mean, I wouldn't— I would definitely love to have something like that, but you know, we're kind of not trying to spend all of our money. That thing's $90,000, I think.

The Badger is.

The Badger is the one that— and not only that, it's got a 600-mile distance.

Wow, that was the most impressive part to me, was how far it could go.

The distance is insane. But, you know, we need something that we can tow a camper with.

And definitely tow a camper.

Well, yeah, we need, we need more room for our kids. And so it's one of those deals where it's like, man, for relatively inexpensive. I can go purchase a vehicle that will allow me to do that, and it's not gonna cost me $70,000 for a new truck, you know.

So anyway, yeah, I've actually seen a Model 3 towing a 2-horse trailer, like full.

Really? Yeah, dude.

And like, it didn't even like struggle.

Those, those Teslas, man, they're incredible vehicles. Have you ever drove one?

I haven't driven one. I've ridden in one, but Yeah, they are fast.

They are fast.

Our buddy Jordan Bean should be letting me test drive one. I know you're listening, Jordan. Call me over. That's right.

Well, we're kind of off track. That's not true.

You need good credit to buy a Tesla.

Exactly.

You absolutely do. If you want to put a deposit down on something, you need the money to be able to do it. What are some of the other buckets that we haven't even talked about? We talked about history. We talked about credit.

Age.

Age. What else?

Is there anything else?

You know, the obvious, the derogatories, you know, those, those are no good. Yeah, definitely shouldn't have those on your credit report.

And sometimes that's as easy as getting, you know, making sure that you're not having to send a check in with your bill, right? Like get on a, get on an automatic payment type thing.

Yeah, I tell all of my clients, set up an autopay, just do the minimum. So that way, at least if you, you know, You can always pay more. You have a lapse in judgment or whatever, yeah, you can always come in there. But the main thing is that you're not missing that payment, right? Um, because those are, those are no fun.

Yeah, with bank automation, there's no— I mean, like, there's not a good excuse.

Yeah, there's really not. There's really not. Um, I mean, it does happen, you know. I've, I've got clients that, you know, of course they've got late payments, and we're pretty good at getting them off, you know, and getting them removed. Yeah.

Um, sometimes it's as easy as calling and saying, hey, Hey, look, I need this taken off.

Right. Yeah. Just, you know, well, you can do that. Definitely. Um, yeah, you can do that. It's a goodwill is what, you know, the creditors like to call it. So you can either send a letter, you can call them. Um, sometimes they want to do it like a paper delete. Um, so, you know, it's just $50, $100 or something to delete that late payment.

Um, okay. So, so you might pay $50 for a $30 late payment, but it takes it off your credit score. Yeah. Which changes everything.

Yeah, exactly. So they know they've got the power.

Sure.

So dude, that's extortion right there.

That's— listen, man, the credit bureaus in general extort American citizens. And I, you know, I was a victim of it. I was a victim of identity theft 3 different times, which is kind of why I got into credit repair.

Okay.

So I actually went to a credit repair company and, you know, paid them. I can't remember exactly how long it was. It was the better part of a year. Didn't see too many changes, had a couple inquiries fall off or whatever, but I even told them this is identity theft, this is fraud, and they couldn't get it off. So anyways, I did my due diligence. I canceled my subscription with them or did my due diligence and figured out what I needed to do to get these accounts remedied and get them off my credit report. So that's what I did. Figured that out. Took me about, I don't know, 3 or 4 months to get everything taken care of and off of there.

And so that's kind of where my journey started with credit.

Okay.

And then flash forward probably 3 years or so, I met a mutual friend out in Las Vegas. And she actually, she does credit repair, she does mentorships, you know, she consults with a lot of celebrities and like, you know, she's got like A-list clients and stuff like that. And I just saw her lifestyle and I was just like, man, this is all from, you know, credit, you know, just learning the game, learning what the public education system fails to teach us.

Mm-hmm.

So I was really impressed. As a matter of fact, you know, she, She put a— me and my business partner, Christian, she put us on a private jet and flew us out to New Orleans. And she wouldn't— I was expecting to show up to the airport and she was going to be there. She wasn't even there. She just put us on a private jet and flew us out to New Orleans. And I was like, dude, that's freaking cool.

So was it just for fun or—

Just for fun.

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome.

Just to get us out and show us New Orleans, I guess. And she didn't even show up. She just wanted to do it. I was like, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, it really opened my eyes to the, uh, the possibility and, and you know, how, you know, how it can, uh, change not only my life but my business partners' lives. And yeah, so it's, it's been a fun ride so far, man. And I've, I've learned so much.

Mm-hmm.

And no matter where I end up going in life, um, I'll probably always stay in this area, in this space, um, somewhat, you know, that no matter where I grow or where I go to, what I've learned in the last, you know, 3 or 4 years or so will help me and my family and everybody that I know just drastically. And that's the whole premise of why I started this.

Mm-hmm.

I just wanted to help people. And one of the best ways to give back is to not only take somebody out of a situation where they're struggling, you know, and they're hurting and, you know, they're thinking about, you know, my credit sucks every day. You know, it's in, if you try, especially starting a business, if you're trying to do anything, credit is that one number that rules your life, you know?

In this economy.

Yeah, for sure.

It really rules your life and it dictates whatever you're trying to do in life. Um, and man, just the sheer gratitude I get from people whenever I'm able to take them out of a situation and put them into a better situation. Yeah, it's, it's worth all the money in the world, man.

So yeah, cuz you're, you're truly helping them. Oh yeah, it's, it's easy to even measure how you've helped them.

Yeah.

You know, I think one of the, one of the coolest businesses that you can be in is anyone that's very measurable.

Mm-hmm.

And just because you get a satisfaction of knowing like I did that today or, or whatever, you know.

And, and seeing a client that, you know, came to me, you know, 6 months ago or whatever and they're Um, buying a house or they're buying a new car or they're out, you know, I see them on Facebook and they're out and about in their new car and having fun, um, enjoying it and being with their family and stuff like that, man. It's, it's a satisfaction that you can't put a dollar sign on, man.

Yeah.

So I truly love it, you know, and like I said, you know, wherever I go in life or whatever I end up doing, you know, God only knows what I'm going to end up doing. But I'll take the tools that I've learned in this space and I'll definitely utilize it. So yeah.

So let me ask you this, because I think whenever a lot of people hear credit repair, they feel like they're going to get taken advantage of because I think there are plenty of companies out there that are, let us consolidate all of your stuff into one monthly payment and do it that way. Like, can you kind of speak into that a little bit? For sure.

So there's definitely a negative connotation on credit repair. Um, and that's just because there's a lot of predatory companies out there, predatory people. You know, it's a highly emotional situation. And so they kind of prey on people that are, you know, stuck between a rock and a hard place. And they're easy to, you know, prey on, you know.

Because they have to do something.

They have to do something.

Yeah.

You know, their back's against the wall. They have to do something. Um, so like I said, you know, they're, they're, they're easy to prey on and, you know, they, they either get them on the phone or they They throw them into this fancy web funnel or whatever and promise them the world. And, you know, you can do this and you can do that. And then they never see the results. They shell out tons of money over time and just never see anything, you know? Um, and it happens a lot, or, you know, they, they, they pay these companies that promise them the world and never do anything. You know, the companies never try.

Right.

And I can get into a credit report and I can tell you if somebody has been working on that file.

Oh, really? Yeah.

I can tell you if somebody's been working on that file. If you've hired a credit repair company, I'll know. So, and I've had that situation where, you know, oh, I paid the last company, you know, this much money and they didn't do anything. And I get in there and I don't say anything, but yeah, there's no, none of the accounts have ever been under dispute. So they didn't do anything. They took their money and ran and it happens, you know?

Sure.

And then there are those predatory companies and there are those predatory people and there always will be. It'll never go away.

Mm-hmm.

Um, the best way to combat evil is with good.

Mm-hmm.

So, so, okay.

So, so how, how do you know how to make sure that you're with a reputable credit repair person? Because now one of the things that's kind of nice about your business is if you live in New York right now, you could call you and you could help them. It's different than a plumber, right? It's different than an electrician who you really have to find someone regional.

So So you truly can help anyone in, anyone in, in, in the nation, in the United States. Yeah.

And so, so there's that, but how do you know if, if they don't know you, how, how do they know who's reputable and who's not?

That's a great question. Um, you know, definitely look at their web presence. Don't deal with a sole person, deal with a company. Mm-hmm. I, I tell you, most of the time somebody gets burned in credit repair in this industry is from just, you know, Joe Blow saying, hey, I can do that. You know, it'd be this much money, write me a check. You know, make sure you're dealing with a reputable company, check their reviews, you know, look on Google, look on Yelp, you know, do your due diligence before you go paying these people.

Right.

Um, I think that's what's helped us a lot is most of our clients are from word of mouth.

Okay.

So it's a lot different, you know, if you were to tell Craig, hey, you know, oh, you need some credit repair, I've got a great guy, I've got a great company.

Yep.

It's, it is completely different than if you go and Google search credit repair and then you've got umpteenth results of these credit repair companies. You don't know which one to pick.

Right.

You know, but you're going to go off of his personal recommendation. And so, you know, we really love word of mouth. Most of our clients come from word of mouth, and we plan on keeping it that way.

Yeah, it's a good model.

Yeah, it really is.

We don't run ads, we don't plan on running ads, we're doing just fine.

So kind of to that point, I mentioned that a lot of these companies are like, I'll just consolidate everything. Is that okay, not okay?

What's the last, last-ditch effort to get rid of some debt is to consolidate. Because what it's going to show on your credit report, there's a remark on every account.

Mm-hmm.

And so what it's going to show is settled for less than agreed.

Mm.

And so let's say you take out a loan, a fat loan. Let's say it's, you know, $100,000 and you end up losing your job or, you know, losing your house or whatever, and you can't pay that loan. So you go to a debt consolidation company. Yeah, they're going to consolidate that debt. They're going to get the creditor off your back. But it's going to end up being a derogatory account because the remark is a negative remark, and it's just as bad as having a collection.

Oh, man.

So they close the account out, you know, they settle it. You don't technically owe that money anymore, but it's going to take a ding on your credit, and it's 7 to 10 years before that comes off.

So, but what you're talking about is like when you go to like a debt consolidation, not like when you move one amount of debt to like another creditor or something like that.

Exactly.

which I would assume is fine.

Yeah, yeah, people do that. It's a balance transfer.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, people do it all the time. They move money around.

To take advantage of interest rates.

Oh yeah, it's like that. Intro rates, yeah. You know, a lot of Discover balance transfer, they do like rewards. So if you balance transfer X amount of dollars, they'll give you X amount of points, things like that. And people actually, they call it manufactured spend. And so they will move money around in various places Um, and just racking those rewards.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's, that's, that's actually a really good way to like go on free vacations. Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Rack up the, the airline miles or whatever, and then you pool them all together because all you're doing is gaming the system.

Yep.

They put the system in place. It's not like you're, you're being illegal or anything like that. You're just, you're just playing the game.

Yep.

Yeah, there's a system.

There's actually whole blogs and like even podcasts dedicated to like the manipulation of credit cards.

Yeah.

Like how to take advantage of different point systems and rewards and benefits and all these kinds of things.

Yeah, I'll give you a little trick. So like, you know, I'm a big fan of American Express, right? So I've got the Amex Platinum, I've got Amex Gold, working on my Black Card.

All right.

Hopefully soon.

But anyways, you can take your American Express, you can go to any Simon Mall. So like the mall down the street, the Woodlands Mall is a Simon Mall. Gallery is a Simon Mall. Most malls are Simon Malls. So you can go to a Simon Mall.

Is that like a company that manages or owns it? Mm-hmm, that owns it. Okay, okay, got it.

Um, and so you can go to their, um, like their front office, whatever they want to call it. Um, and you can buy a gift card, like a Visa gift card. Um, you know, you can put $500 on a gift card, right? Go to a Simon Mall, make sure it's a Simon Mall. Go to a Simon Mall, buy a gift card, put $500 on there. You can buy 10 of them, put $5,000 on there, right?

Right.

So I get 3, 3 points back per dollar I spend shopping. And so the transaction is going to show up as Simon Mall. And so it's shopping. So it's like I just spent $5,000 at the mall, but I really just got $5,000 in gift cards. Now I take those gift cards, I can run over to the post office, I can buy a money order. Then I can take that money order, I can drop it in my checking account, I can pay my bill. So now I just got 15,000 points for virtually free.

Wow.

Yeah.

And just put that money right back.

Yeah. You can just do it again if you want to.

Yeah. That is Brilliant.

Yeah.

So, and like, so someone like me, like, I, I don't do hardly any of our finances. I have no idea what credit card points even do. What do you do with those?

Um, I mean, there's a lot of things. You can pay your bill with them, you can shop on Amazon with them. Best thing to do is to book a flight, book a hotel.

Okay.

Um, your points are worth more if you travel.

Okay.

Yeah, it's one of those deals where, um, you, you get Like, from— for what I've got, I use Capital One Venture. We get 2— I get 2% on anything I spend, no matter what it is. But if I use that, that cash, so to speak, to pay my bill, it's only worth 1%. But if I use it for travel, it's worth 2%.

Exactly.

Um, but there's a lot of things, like my card actually allows me to use my points on Amazon, for example. So there's— they've got deals with these other companies that say, hey, if you do this or if you do that, and they've got, you know, partners. So you can put them on a gift card sometimes, and sometimes you get more points for using certain other realtors— realtors, certain retailers. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for. Then, you know, if they've got a partnership with them, you might get 2% if you use it, you know, Dooney Bourke, but if you might get 1% if you use I don't know, like the best example you could come up with is a purse company. Well, I buy a lot of purses,

and I call them murses actually. So, but that's just me.

I see guys like you walking around all the time. Yeah, they're a little man purse, right?

Yeah, exactly. Well, and it's either crunchy—

they're crunchy.

It's just a fanny pack too. Have you seen the Disney ones?

Come on. Oh my gosh, dude.

Hey, no, I'm not wearing a fanny pack ever.

I never thought those would come back. I never did.

either. And honestly, here they are. If, if I could do one thing to like help the world, I would eradicate fanny packs. Fanny packs. Because everybody looks dumb in them. If you're listening right now, you can't wear a fanny pack. I'm just saying, like, it— I don't care how handy you say it is, it still looks dumb.

But, but they, they wear it as a fashion statement.

Absolutely, they do.

Listen, here's what I know.

Your fanny pack, there's nothing in there.

At the end of the day, if you're wearing a fanny pack, I am like 100% certain that you are not winning a boxing match.

What it means is I can take that fanny pack from you. That's right. That's all I know.

And whatever's in the fanny pack.

That's right. I can, I can just take it off of your body.

Yeah.

And what are you going to do?

What are you going to do?

Yeah. We usually try and avoid insulting and injuring the ego of people, but when it comes to this issue, hey, let it fly.

We have a line in the sand.

Gloves are off.

Our line in the sand is fanny packs.

That's right.

I don't care if it has Donald Duck on it. I don't care who it is. Yeah, take it off.

Yeah, there's—

I'm, I'm glad we, uh, hit that conversation.

Me too. It's, it's an important cultural moment in our time.

We have a lot of conversations on here that people need to know, and this is one of them.

Very relevant. Yeah, absolutely.

So, are— where are we on, on, on the, on the ladies wearing the fanny pack? Are we still out?

I'm, I'm out. I am 100% out.

Because I mean, it's basically like it's a purse. I mean, they could take it off, put it on the shoulder.

Yeah, I'm accepting of the women. I'm accepting of the women wearing fanny packs.

No, I'm out. Yeah, I'm out. Because— but guys, we wear backpacks. Come on. I mean, my wife carries a purse that also has straps on it if she wants to wear it as a backpack. Completely acceptable. She puts a fanny pack on, I'm looking at her strange. I'm kind of going, babe, I did not know something very important about you. I didn't know.

This needs to be in the vows.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Like, you—

we—

just for this, I should have made an annulment. I think there's, there's things I should have known about you. Yeah, that I did not know about you.

Yeah, about the pre— when the prenup with the fanny pack.

Yes, I mean, the lawyer's gonna look at this addendum in here.

What is that?

The lawyer's gonna look at me and go, dude, that is some pre-thought right there. You have thought this out. That's good.

Oh man.

All right, well, okay, so we've, we've hit on a couple of, you know, bad things, you know, like don't, don't do this, don't do that. What is— what would you say the number one thing that you advise people on? Do this Do this and you will always improve your credit score. Is there one thing that you say almost always?

Not one thing, but I can hit a couple. Set up auto draft on all of your credit cards. Never miss a payment. Call your creditors every 90 days. Ask for an increase in your line of credit.

Does that hurt your credit score? No, not at all. If you ask for an increase and they turn you down? Nope.

It's like asking any question. There's no bad question. Is that something you have to pick up the phone to do? to do, unfortunately.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I would imagine somebody's come up with some sort of automated system.

I mean, as far as, you know, what I know, no, you gotta call them. And it's probably better that you call them because you're speaking to a live agent, and, you know, it's, it's just sales, you know.

Chat them up, man.

Chat them up.

They're like, hey, how you doing today? Is it hot there?

Because it is hot here.

Like, they're like, all of a sudden they're like, win them over.

Because, you know, even if they tell you, they like, I can't do I promise you, they can do it.

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's very similar to, you know, I have clients that, um, of course everybody wants a really good credit card, you know, to get rewards and things like that. And so let's say they apply, uh, one of my favorite cards is Chase Sapphire, Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Business Ink, right? Love Chase. Great, great company. Let's say they apply for a Chase Sapphire, they get denied. There's a, there's a, um, a phone number. You can just Google it. It's called Chase reconsideration. Uh, most creditors have these reconsideration lines. You just call the reconsideration line and basically it's just sales. You just sell 'em on why you need a credit card, why you'd be a good customer.

Okay.

And they have the power to reconsider you. And a lot of them will tell you like, oh, I can't, I can't do this. I can't do that. And that's just a cop-out. All of, if you, if you're calling that number, They can reconsider you. And so if they don't reconsider you for whatever reason, hang up and call back.

Okay, you might get a different person.

You will, you will get a different person, and somebody will give you the answer you want.

So yeah, yeah. So can— are there instances where you call in and say, hey, I want to increase my credit, my credit by $100,000? Like, can you do that? Or would you just say— is it better to just I want to increase my credit score. What will you give me?

Yeah. What do I qualify for?

Okay.

Yeah. You can, um, like—

We need to know the language here. I mean, we need to speak these people's language.

That's right. Because I'm calling tomorrow, y'all.

So whenever I do increases with, uh, with American Express, they will, uh, they'll put on the application what I'm applying for, for the increase.

Okay.

Um, but yeah, you can just say, you know, whatever I qualify for, I'll take it.

Yeah.

And like, for me in the past year, the income in my household has changed because my wife went from working part-time to full-time. That might be something.

And that's, and that's another— I'm glad you brought that up. It's an interesting point.

So, so, uh, you finally asked a good one, Kev.

It's taken 101 episodes, but I have finally arrived.

No, um, you know, whenever you apply for these cards in your original application Um, it asks you what your annual, you know, salary, how much money you make.

Right.

And so they keep that on record. And so if you end up like, you know, your, your wife got a better job.

Yeah.

When she went from part-time to full-time. So yeah. Okay.

So she's making more money. So your, your, your entire household is your, is technically your stated income.

Okay. Right.

And so whenever you apply, A, make sure you use the entire household's income. It doesn't matter if your mom and dad are living with you or whatever, use the whole house's income.

What if Grammy comes for like the weekend a lot?

What was that?

What if Grammy comes for the weekend a lot?

Use it. It's like I said, it's stated income. And, um, and if you, if you do get a raise or you get a bonus or, you know, you're making an extra, you know, $50,000 a year, call them up and tell them and then ask for an increase in your line of credit.

Okay.

Because they, they keep all this stuff record, you know?

So do you need to call them and then call back Act, or do you—

can you do that all at the same time? Yeah, you can do it on the same, same phone call.

But definitely tomorrow.

But definitely do it, man. Um, you know, take care of it and they'll take care of you.

Yeah. So, hey, a minute ago you mentioned Chase, and, and we, we're actually in the middle of a refinance with Chase right now. So we— but we had a really interesting— like, one, it's been a bizarre situation because they've been stringing us out now for like 2 and a half months.

It's like there's this thing in the air that like, yeah, causing people to not call you back and all kinds of stuff.

We can get a hold of people, but they just keep changing the rules basically.

So I hate when that happens.

Yeah.

So, and like, you know, credit score has not been a problem.

Yeah.

And all this kind of stuff. But like what the weird one that came up, I think it was, it may have been today. They called and they said, hey, we need you to reactivate your student loans.

What?

Now, my wife has student loans and we've always paid them.

Are they in deferment?

They put them— what was it? Was it deferment? No, they put them in— what's the word? Forbearance.

Okay.

And apparently, this is something the federal government did. They put all student loans in forbearance right now.

Yep.

And so Chase called us today and they said, hey, we need you to reactivate your student loans. We're like, we didn't even know they were turned off. What are you talking about? And they're like, well, all student loans went into forbearance. And so you've got to get them turned on by tomorrow. And so we called the student loan place and we're like, hey, what's going on? And they explained to us they put all student loans in forbearance. And they said, well, it's going to take 10 business days to reactivate your account. And it's like, no, we want to give you money.

Right.

Yeah. I don't understand.

How do I pay?

Can I flip it? Is there a switch? I'll come down there and turn it on.

Right.

But like, it's, it's just like weird stuff like that sometimes that pops up, and it's like, it didn't affect our credit.

Yeah.

Because you're like, we didn't miss any payments or anything. But like, the bank's looking at it going, well, this is— this is—

They're not— the way they see is that you're not able to pay it, right? Yeah.

And, and then there was a— there was another one that they were like, well, you've, you've got this amount of money sitting over here, and we'd really just like that account cleared. Like, what bank is No, it was a line of credit. And we're like, well, we can pay it off if you want, but it's at 0%. Why would we do that?

Is it a high— is your balance really high?

No, not at all.

Mortgages are really tricky.

Mortgages are weird.

And we're learning that refinances are apparently more complicated. Because closing on a house is, I mean, for me, it's always been pretty Pretty straightforward. But getting there has been— this has just been one mess after the other of like, hey, we need you to do this with this account. Hey, we need you— and it's weird stuff that has nothing to do with our credit, has nothing to do with our debt-to-income ratio or any of that. It's just like, hey, we need you to turn that account back on.

Well, we didn't turn it off. There's weird stuff that a lot of creditors will do, and student loans are a real bad about this because they're long payments. I'm still paying on mine from 20 years ago.

Yeah.

Not quite 20, but a long time. I was getting a notice, hey, your payment's coming up, and it's auto-drafted, so I don't ever really fully worry about it. I pay $100— it was like $116 a month was all I paid. I said, hey, your, your, your payment's coming up, it's $87. And I was like, what? What's happened? And so I called in and they're like, yeah, we lowered your payment, you're welcome. And I was like, I don't want to lower my payment. Yeah, you're welcome. I didn't, I didn't ask for that.

Okay.

And I said, what I want to do is I want to increase it to make it a round number. Let's make it $120. You know, I don't I want, you know, $125, whatever it is. I want to make it— I want to make it more.

Yeah.

And, um, and she said, well, you know, you don't have to do that. And I understand, but you're charging me interest every single time, and a lower payment means I'm going to pay you longer, and I don't want to pay you longer. I want to pay you less. So, um, I need that back. And she said, well, there's a form you're gonna have to fill out for that. And so I literally had her— she had to email me a form I had to sign it, send it back just so I could get my payment where it was. I never asked for it to be changed. Well, guess what? A lot of people just don't want to do that. Yeah. And so

they want to put you through the meat grinder. Absolutely. Make, make smart choices with your money. I think that, you know, and sometimes a lower payment, it might help you. Maybe you need that. But if you don't, man, don't, don't let these creditors screw you over just because you're unwilling to take the time to check your score.

Absolutely.

Check things out.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I've never heard of that. Yeah, you got to go fill out this form. It's like being at the DMV.

Yeah.

I'm trying to give you money.

I just want to pay you more. Why would you not want me to do that?

Here's the silver lining in the cloud and all this stuff from us is there's programs and incentives that a lot of people don't realize are available. And so like with student loans in particular, my wife has always worked in the nonprofit sector. Apparently if you spend 10 years working full-time in the nonprofit sector, you can get your student loans completely forgiven.

Yeah. But, but there, there's, there's some stipulations.

There are stipulations.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Because I, I almost fell into that myself and, um, it's 10 years. It has to be at the same place.

It does. Doesn't. They changed that.

Well, I'm calling someone because she had she had been number Craig.

Give me a phone number. Eight years at the same organization, and then she switched over to another organization, and she and and you know with with like a heavy heart did it because she knew that she would she thought she was losing the ability to get those forgiven. And when she was talking with the student loan people today, they're like, "Hey, you qualify for," you know, da da da da da. And she's like, "I thought." disqualified myself.

That's interesting. I guess I'm gonna be on the phone all day tomorrow. Yeah, it's worth it. Hey, worth it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You know, like that one phone call can be worth like, you know, like what, $20,000, $30,000?

I mean, not quite, but close. Sure, still worth it.

I know where you went to school.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, um, is there anything that we haven't hit on that you think a listener—

Man, I could talk about this all day.

Okay.

All day.

Well, and so I guess, I guess the really good thing to know is that you're available, and we'll get to that in a minute, but you're available. And at the end of the day, your credit score matters. The only way your credit score doesn't matter is if you've got a buttload of cash sitting around somewhere and you can pay cash.

Even then it matters. It does, because leveraging OPM is one of the greatest things that you can do.

I don't know what you just said. Other people's money.

So if you've got $100 million in the bank and you want to purchase something that's $50 million, do you really want to pull $50 million out of your bank account? Or do you want to go to your banker and say, hey, I might, and then pay what, 3% on the note? Yeah, I'm paying 3% on the note.

Absolutely.

To make 10% a year.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a deal.

Oh yeah.

Well, so So at the end of the day, if you don't know what your credit score is, find out. And if it's not what you really want it to be, and really where you want it to be is in the 700s, and if it's not, hey, for a relatively small amount of money, they can call you, take care of it.

Absolutely.

And guess what? Your buying power just went way up. And it's not just about buying stuff. It's just about having the ability to do stuff. We talk all the time. If you want to buy a house, you have to have credit.

And it's very important to have the best score that you can possibly have because the money it's going to save you on interest over a 30-year term is just— the money that we're going to charge you to do what we do is a drop in the bucket compared to what you're about to pay in interest rates.

Yeah.

And so this personal loan we were talking about for the Excursion, I called a couple of different places, credit unions, a couple of banks. banks and just said, hey, I'm looking to take out a personal loan for this amount. And how— so how much is the interest rate? Well, they need more information, right? And I said, I said, well, my last I checked, my credit score is around 800. And they said, okay, well, it's gonna be this. And it was like, like one place was 8.5%, one place was 9.5%. One place was 5.99%, and I'm like, I'm going 5.99%. But at the end of the day, that could— over, over time, that 2 or 3 percentage points could cost you a lot of money that you really don't need to

worry about. So yep, higher credit scores gives you better interest rates.

Yep, yep. And scale that, you know, that's a relatively small loan over a short term. Scale that to a home loan or a small business loan, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars or something like that over, you know, 10, 20, 30 years.

Yeah.

We were talking, it adds up.

Uh, I don't know, quite a few episodes ago about how like a lot of our parents who were buying houses in like the '80s and '90s and they were paying like 15% interest on these homes. Now, now granted the homes didn't cost as much as they do now, but the money, everything was relative.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, right. So inflation has gone through the roof.

And rates were so much higher.

They were so much higher. Yeah. And, and now you, you're looking at buy a house for 3.5%. What? Yeah.

Yeah. 2.9.

Yeah. Unbelievable.

Yeah. And right now rates are so low. So low.

So low.

Now's the time to purchase. So if you can.

Yeah. Which, which is crazy. We talked about this a couple episodes ago. It's also the time to sell because, yeah, it's weirdest thing ever.

Like, yeah, it is.

It's a paradox. You're getting more money for your house than you've ever been able to get for it, and people can buy it because there are lower interest rates than there have ever been. Yeah, it's the weirdest thing in the world.

Yeah, and they're able to qualify. Yeah, you know, more people are able to qualify now than ever.

Absolutely. So, well, listen, um, we, we absolutely cannot let you leave until we do the most important thing of the show. Everybody, everybody holds their breath to this part of the show, and, uh, Uh, that's what we call the final 4. The final 4. That's right.

So these are— you don't have a buzzer for me there, man.

Well, we had one, but someone broke it.

Oh yeah. No, it wasn't you, was it?

It was probably me. Yeah. Uh, anyway, so these are the final 4 questions we ask all of our guests. So we're just gonna start it off here. So what is the must-have tool you won't leave your house without?

Um, I got, man, I gotta go with a face mask nowadays. Oh, gotta go with the face mask.

Are you going full shield or are you not?

Not full shield.

I'm not all the way there. Just, uh, just your regular old face mask just to make people happy.

Yeah.

So I don't get weird looks and stuff.

Is this like a cloth mask that someone made or is this like—

Dude, I've got like 4 masks in my truck and like earlier I tried to go out and go do something and I didn't have one mask. So I went home and got all my masks and threw them in there. I've got like cloth ones, surgical masks.

Yeah.

So I'm trying, I'm trying here, man. I'm trying. I'm doing my part.

Have you had, have you had to do the walk shame back to the truck.

I did it like right before I came here.

Yeah, where you like get to the door and like, ah, the sign. No, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm back at this point. I've got one in every vehicle that I own because I'm like, this is not gonna turn out well. Yeah, I get somewhere and I'm like, I gotta go home. Yeah, not happy.

Yeah, we've got to adopt it in our daily routine now. It's kind of crazy.

That is right.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, well, second question What is a job you've walked away from? Now, I've already told you the precursor.

Yeah.

Everybody listens to the show knows it, but what's a job you've walked away from, man?

I, I've, I've been thinking about this question. Um, honestly, dude, I, I, I don't have an answer for you, man.

Okay.

I don't have an answer. All right. I, I've, I've literally never walked away from a job in my life. I don't think.

Okay.

There, there, there's probably been a situation where I couldn't do something and I called for help.

I know there's been that situation, but I mean, but you can change a tire, so you don't need help. No, you're not wearing a fanny pack.

He can change a tire. Exactly. Exactly, dude. Exactly. Exactly. You don't see a fanny pack over here, man.

We're good. We're good.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, cool. All right, well, let's move on to the next one then. How do you wind down at the end of a long day?

Uh, so I always go home. So I, I've got, I've got one of the greatest dogs, man.

Oh yeah.

So I always go home. I hear your dogs barking. Yeah.

They're out there chasing horses.

They're, you got some cool ones too, man. But I always go home and I love on my dog and, uh, take him either on a walk. He loves his tennis, but he's a lab, so he loves his tennis balls.

Yeah.

So I'll, I'll take him, we'll go throw his tennis balls. Um, and then, you know, before I go to bed, I gotta read a couple pages outta my book.

So, okay.

Yeah. Yeah, it's the best way to wind down.

Anything good right now?

Yeah, there's a really good book I'm reading. My business partner Brian actually recommended it. It's called Traction.

Okay, yeah.

You should probably read it.

I have it. Oh, you do?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, so I'm reading that one right now.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah, I haven't gotten to that one yet. It's in the stack.

I've barely started, so I'll let you know how it is when I finish. But Brian, you know, he swears by it. He's like, dude, it will literally change how you do business.

Okay. It's been recommended to me several times.

It's, it's up there.

Okay.

It's up there.

Well, I'm reading a book too now, guys.

So, oh, if y'all wanna know, what, what, what book are you reading?

Oh, it's The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Oh really? Is it fiction?

It is fiction. It is, it is the prequel to The Hunger Games.

Oh really?

So it's, and by the way, I've heard that book is amazing. It's fantastic.

Yeah.

So if you like The Hunger Games, It's weird.

Movie was—

yeah, I understand, but books are, books are better than movies, I think. They are.

Because it's, it's your own imagination coming up with all this, you know?

So yeah, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird story. I'll just, I'll just give you a little precursor. It's weird, you're like, you're, you're gonna go, why would I want to read, um, watch or read— it's read right now, it's not out on movie yet— why would you want to read that? It's the story of President Snow growing up.

Okay.

And so you wind up actually liking him, so Yeah. Um, anyway, it's, it's fiction. It's not going to help me make more money or get more traction in my business. However, it is going to help me sleep at night. So that's going to help.

There you go, man. There you go. All right. I haven't read a fiction book in a long time, so maybe I need to pick it up.

Hey, you know, once, once I went the nonfiction route, man, it's, it's hard to go back to fiction.

It really is.

I'm a realist, man. I'm a realist. And, and if it doesn't apply to my life, like, it's just very hard to, to focus and pay attention and want to do it, you know? And I'm just, I've been in this mindset, you know, being an entrepreneur for so long, like I've got to feed that hunger, you know?

No, it's good. I mean, it makes you a better person.

It does.

And it's a, that's a good thing.

Yeah. You're constantly growing, man.

Yeah, absolutely. And if you're not growing, then the opposite is true, right?

Exactly.

So, all right, cool. Uh, last question. What's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice you've ever received?

Um, it's gotta be from my dad. Can't soar with eagles and, uh, fly with buzzards.

Totally.

You are who you hang out with.

Absolutely.

That, man, I, I cannot tell you how often I literally preach that. Yeah. So that hit home, huh?

Yeah, man.

I, I completely agree.

You're a, you're a product of your 5 closest friends.

Yeah. So that's absolutely true.

Yep.

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you the other thing that's really interesting. Um, now that we've broached the mask conversation, and that is that mask beard is real, y'all.

Mask beard.

Mask beard is really— yeah, like bedhead goes away as soon as you take a shower.

Mask beard, it kind of just shapes it.

It does. Like, yeah, that's like this weird like flare-out thing. I look like a stormtrooper half the time.

Does this normally happen with you, these little— Oh yeah, yeah, little handlebars.

That's actually intentional. Yeah, believe it or not.

I like it.

Actually intentional.

Yeah, thank you.

You putting some product up in that, up in that hair? A little bit. Yeah, yeah, a little wax.

A little bit wax.

Okay.

Yeah, otherwise it— yeah, it's frustrating. So you gotta— yeah, like, I'll look into the camera. It's getting there. Yeah, it's getting there.

It's very classy, man.

Well, it's— as the, the, the person that cut my— gave me a beard trim the other day, she said it's trendy. I was like, I'm shaving it off.

I don't ever say that word.

I don't want to be trendy. I'm gonna go buy a fanny pack. So, but I have to tell you, like, I'm in no way, shape, or form anywhere close to Craig's dad whenever it comes to growing a mustache. Yeah, that's a tough one to beat. Yeah, so like, he's, he's kind of got some Sam Elliott action going on.

Oh really?

Oh yeah, yeah, Sam Elliott, like, yeah, all the, you know, all the, all the men that you think of, like really good manly men.

Yeah.

He's up there. His dad, man. It's for real.

So my, my, my dad's got a pretty good mustache too. He's got it. It's back in the day, it was red like yours.

Mm-hmm.

You know, he's, he's Irish, but now it's white.

So, yeah. Oh, dude, I, I like the white facial hair, man. I do too.

Yeah, I do too.

That's a goal.

Yeah.

That's a goal of mine.

Yeah.

White beard, man. Mm-hmm.

I mean, you're Yeah, you're seasoned, man.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, Craig is the only one who can ask this next question, but there, there is a secret question that we have to ask you. Absolutely.

It's vitally important to the show.

Pressure's on, man.

Yeah, that's right. How do people find you if they want to get ahold of you?

Very easy.

You can find me on Facebook, Mason Miller. Find me on Instagram at Texas Credit You can call the office. Number's 936-447-9546. Visit our website, bwicredit.com. Those are the main ones, man. Okay.

Yeah.

We'll link all of that up in the show notes.

Absolutely.

Send it out via the email this week.

For sure.

That's right. Make sure people know how to get ahold of you.

Yeah. Please reach out, man. I'd love to help you guys.

Yeah. Man, it's always good to talk to people who genuinely want to help other people. I mean, like, to me, that almost always translates into success in their own business.

Well, that's the foundation of business, is providing value, providing a service.

Yeah, people aren't gonna come back if they're not getting something from you.

Or refer you.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's probably one of the biggest, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? nicest thing somebody can do for me, or the— what's the word I'm looking for?

Um, I wish I knew.

When somebody refers, you know, their friend or their family to me and my company, you know, it's, it, it tells me I've done a good job.