Speaker 1: How often do you think about credit?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: You got me? You got me?
Speaker 1: Why the how, the pitfalls, the benefits. I'm Troy Millions
Speaker 1: and together with my partner Rashad Balau, we have been
Speaker 1: financial educators under the unger Lijia banner and in this
Speaker 1: series we can partner with Chase Freedom Rise to talk
Speaker 1: to the next generation about credit confidence and specific steps
Speaker 1: to building something real. This is Foundation Forward Episode two.
Speaker 1: What is the time to start your credit journey?
Speaker 4: My name is Jaden Wilson. I live in Santa Barbara, California.
Speaker 1: It's a really beautiful day today.
Speaker 4: I am studying economics. I have my real estate license,
Speaker 4: I have an IT internship, and I work at a
Speaker 4: local restaurant. I've seen my parents, you know, they are
Speaker 4: definitely a big inspiration for me on why I work
Speaker 4: so hard, you know, seeing my dad like do his
Speaker 4: job and just see how my mom handles our finances.
Speaker 4: Like they've had me understand like a different side of
Speaker 4: things where it's like saving money on everything. It's every
Speaker 4: day that extra dollars ten dollars that you save here,
Speaker 4: it's going to need something And dobli are you talking
Speaker 4: to a financial expert? I hope to learn the different
Speaker 4: ways I can improve my credit usage and my credit score,
Speaker 4: and how I can get loads in the future for
Speaker 4: my house.
Speaker 2: Gen z Express a general aversion to credit cards, describing
Speaker 2: them as giving them the eye.
Speaker 3: Man, how you doing?
Speaker 1: It's going on, man, Troy Jaden, pleasure need you man?
Speaker 2: How you doing? Man?
Speaker 4: I'm doing really good. Thanks for coming and taking time
Speaker 4: out of your day to come and see me.
Speaker 5: Oh man, thank you for joining us. So I hear
Speaker 5: you a man of many.
Speaker 6: Hustles, Do you have any level of financial anxiety or
Speaker 6: fear or does anything keep you up at night thinking
Speaker 6: about finances?
Speaker 4: Definitely? When I turn around at like twenty five and
Speaker 4: I look at all these years I worked all like
Speaker 4: the money, and I realized I only have like a
Speaker 4: very small fraction of none of it after all those
Speaker 4: years of working, what was the point of alving every
Speaker 4: decision I make? Money is probably the first thing then
Speaker 4: I think about. I mean, like it's like if like
Speaker 4: everyone wants to go out to eat, you know, it's
Speaker 4: like thirty dollars, Like do I want to spend that?
Speaker 4: Everyone wants to go vacation somewhere, like, you know, do
Speaker 4: I go do that? Like you can't start in the future,
Speaker 4: like you don't have all this time. It's like you
Speaker 4: got to start now. You have to start today, you know.
Speaker 4: And it's like when you learn about compound interest, you know,
Speaker 4: and it's like you got to start doing it. You're
Speaker 4: gonna do it early, you know. It's like the first
Speaker 4: three years could be millions of dollars in difference down
Speaker 4: the line. So it's like, that's my mentality always say.
Speaker 2: Sixty eight percent of gen z report that credit card
Speaker 2: bill has caused them stress and anxiety.
Speaker 5: Oh have you started to have experiences with credit cards yet?
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I have.
Speaker 1: How's that been.
Speaker 4: I got my first card, my first credit card when
Speaker 4: I first moved to Santa Barbara in my freshman year.
Speaker 4: It's it's definitely been like a learning curve because it's
Speaker 4: almost like you're giving like all this power and you
Speaker 4: don't know really what to do with it. I was
Speaker 4: always kind of confused on like I don't want to
Speaker 4: get another one and then like that like affect me
Speaker 4: on the line when getting another one, or I also
Speaker 4: don't want to get one and then not have like
Speaker 4: a use for it. I guess like that's like what
Speaker 4: I want to learn. It's just like, how can I
Speaker 4: make it work for me? You know? How could I
Speaker 4: make this money throughout?
Speaker 1: Without question? Jaden is a hard worker, and he reminds
Speaker 1: us of another hustler a little further along on his journey,
Speaker 1: a creator would start to make his credit grow in
Speaker 1: the city that Never sleeps.
Speaker 3: When I came to college, I started major in computer science,
Speaker 3: major in economics for a little bit political science to
Speaker 3: do something in politics, and I finally, just like I
Speaker 3: realized that I wanted to just study history.
Speaker 1: And probably just two.
Speaker 3: Months before I graduated, I made my first TikTok that
Speaker 3: blew up, and that's why I made the decision just
Speaker 3: start social media.
Speaker 5: Khalil Green has been nominated for two Emmys, is a
Speaker 5: Peabody Award winner Forbes Thirty Under Thirty, and the first
Speaker 5: Black student president at Yale University. He is a gen
Speaker 5: Z historian blending education and entertainment. We sat down with
Speaker 5: him to speak about his credit journey and any pearls
Speaker 5: of wisdom he made.
Speaker 1: Have for Jaden.
Speaker 3: When I got to college, there were students around me
Speaker 3: who some of them had credit cards. I realized that
Speaker 3: making all these purchases and not doing on a credit
Speaker 3: card was almost wasted potential because I could start building
Speaker 3: my credit, I could start thinking about how I can
Speaker 3: better my credit score. I mean, it feels so dumb now,
Speaker 3: like you need to use the credit card to get
Speaker 3: a lot of the benefits from it. I didn't know
Speaker 3: how much it would affect me until much later on
Speaker 3: when I was applying for my first apartment. But luckily
Speaker 3: I listened to that voice in the back of my
Speaker 3: head saying, Okay, this is something you should start doing.
Speaker 3: I didn't always understand the difference between debit and credit cards.
Speaker 5: Some people think a credit card is like a gift
Speaker 5: card in a sense, where is if you have a
Speaker 5: two thousand dollars limit, you're supposed to spend two thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: But it's probably even worse because I feel like I
Speaker 3: knew that, but I still living. Like sometimes it just
Speaker 3: creeps up on you. Any work, when you're hustling, you
Speaker 3: have like odd jobs. You have really good months, and
Speaker 3: you have really like bad months, and you have to
Speaker 3: be intentional about finding somewhere in the middle that you
Speaker 3: can just put in your head for like how much
Speaker 3: you should spend months to month. So I have a
Speaker 3: good month. I have ten brand deals, five viral videos,
Speaker 3: got one hundred k new followers.
Speaker 1: The money might super fluctuates. Man, there's a moment in
Speaker 1: every young man's life when you get the credit card,
Speaker 1: and then there's a moment when that credit limit gets increased. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: One of the ways to help build it is to
Speaker 1: be diverse.
Speaker 3: Because rent factoring, like, what other things should I be
Speaker 3: thinking about that I can add in easily?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think credit utilization. That's a big piece of it,
Speaker 1: over thirty percent. How much debt do you have? The
Speaker 1: mixture is important, The length of it is important. So
Speaker 1: they look at your credit from a percentage base point,
Speaker 1: and fifteen percent of that score is going to be
Speaker 1: the mixture of credit. Another fifteen is the length of
Speaker 1: your credit, so yeah, how long have you had the credit?
Speaker 1: So really it's a trustworthy system. So if you factor
Speaker 1: all those things in and you keep a good standing,
Speaker 1: this is ways to improve your credit card and you're
Speaker 1: going to see your limits increase. But this is the
Speaker 1: most important thing. You got to be disciplined.
Speaker 5: What advice would you give to somebody that is eighteen
Speaker 5: that's just enrolling in college.
Speaker 3: I would say just start thinking about the long term.
Speaker 3: The important thing is to almost have faith in it.
Speaker 3: Faith that these long term, these small things that you do,
Speaker 3: getting a credit card, using that credit card, making your
Speaker 3: payments on time, getting a job, choosing a career that
Speaker 3: you're interested in, that they'll benefit you down the line,
Speaker 3: because it canna all come back to you and you
Speaker 3: just want to look back and say I made the
Speaker 3: right decisions. So just have faith that these small things
Speaker 3: will really pay off. I'd say that, Jaden. Number one,
Speaker 3: I'm proud of you. Many people feel the pressure to
Speaker 3: choose one thing very early on in life. I didn't
Speaker 3: do that, and I'm very lucky because I didn't do that.
Speaker 3: Keep going, keep trying new things, and only settle on
Speaker 3: something when it feels.
Speaker 4: Right for you.
Speaker 1: We are totally aligned with Kalil's advice to Jaden. Now
Speaker 1: we thought we'd add to it with Jaden's own EYL
Speaker 1: and Chase Freedom Rise Foundation forward checklists.
Speaker 5: First, make a plan for your short term.
Speaker 1: We're gonna add credit, We're gonna figure out how to
Speaker 1: leverage it.
Speaker 5: Second, apply for a credit card, a specifically designed for
Speaker 5: someone with no credit distort. Third, limit your credit usage
Speaker 5: and pay your bill month for.
Speaker 1: Credit utilization that you want to keep those things pretty low.
Speaker 5: And for actively monitor your credit report.
Speaker 4: It was really eye opening talking to them. It really
Speaker 4: was nice to have someone who like knew what they
Speaker 4: were talking about, who actually cared and definitely I'm going
Speaker 4: to implement their plan and like get a new credit
Speaker 4: card for sure.
Speaker 1: The future is bright. Jaden is an oppressive young man.
Speaker 1: What's what's the biggest takeaway?
Speaker 5: Just how discipline he was, especially with the financial prayer parture.
Speaker 5: That's real, Like, you know, for somebody that young to
Speaker 5: have that level of self awareness for the delayed gratification
Speaker 5: and you know, willing to delay what he wants right
Speaker 5: now for the future. That's that's that's very mature.
Speaker 1: And he's not focused on one thing. I think that's
Speaker 1: what I like the most. He is versatile. At some
Speaker 1: point he's going to be leading the company and the
Speaker 1: people that are at this restaurant will be working for him.