ORLANDO, Fla. – Audrey Harris White seems to have done just about everything, from working 30 years as an Orlando Police Department detective, professional bodybuilding, beauty consulting, portraiture and even acting in various films and TV shows.
It makes her a woman who you could go to for advice in more than most money-making efforts.
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This week on “Black Men Sundays,” host Corie Murray joins White in a conversation that begins with credit scores, as her own is now past 800. Aside from that being something she’s very proud of, she’s also willing to lower the ladder for you to join her up there.
“My first advice to anyone who asks me (about credit scores) is you freeze your FICO score, you have to freeze your accounts. That prevents some identity thieves from getting access to your credit and you have to check your credit score often. I just recently made it into the 800, so I’m really happy, I’m trying to make it to the top of the 800s, so that was one of my goals, and you can do that. As I said, you freeze your credit score and you check it, make sure that — any errors, to eliminate those errors — and you have to keep your credit, your debt, even though you may have a lot of credit available to you. Of course, you keep it down to the minimum and try to keep it under 30 to 20%, and when you do that, pay your bills on time, your credit score will go up,” White said.
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White admitted that she, in her younger years, thought that having multiple credit cards was the way to go. In her 20s, she said that she had 12 of them at one point, what led to her spending more than what she was even making at the time.
“At the end of the month, I was in a deficit as far as cash available and I picked up a book (...) I think it’s by Charles Schwab, on managing your money, becoming an investor, and I learned the first thing you do is pay yourself first,” White said.
So, pay yourself first. In other words, save.
Such a thing looks different in one’s 20s than what’s possible later in life, though. In White’s case, she started with the simple withholding of 10-20% from each paycheck — using that money to buy stocks every now and then — and eventually began making tax write-offs on nearly very applicable expense.
“One of the things I’ve always done is I’ve always had a side hustle, an extra job that I do in my home which makes my home a tax write-off. I can write off a portion of my mortgage, portion of my lights, my cell phone; if you do something that you have to bring people into your home (for), then you can write off your landscaping, the bill for the water, because your home is what you’re using to attract clients. Whatever you do for the home. If you have a cleaner, a person that comes in and cleans, that can be written off too because you’re using that for the purpose of making your home presentable to your clients as they come in,” White said. “...I’ve done my artwork because I have a art degree where I did portraits, the bodybuilding where I had my workout equipment in the home, and then the Mary Kay when I was a beauty consultant (...) when I was doing the beauty consulting, I actually wrote me off, my hair, my nails, my shoes, my clothes, because I was a walking advertisement for what I was doing.”
But let’s walk it back a bit. Let’s say you’re not a beauty consultant. Not only is that perfectly understandable, but White shared an easy way to pay off multiple credit cards that can get you started on that journey to improve your FICO score.
“If you have multiple cards and they’re not paid off, the one with the lowest payment is the one you pay first. Let’s say you’re paying $400 a month. You pay that $400, you get that card paid off, you take that $400 — you don’t just put it back in the account — you take that $400 and put it toward the next payment for the other card and you pay that off quickly, and when you’ve paid off that second card, you take those funds and you pay off the third card. So, the purpose is that each card you’ll pay down faster, and of course when you’ve paid all the cards off, then you can start putting it back in your account, putting it toward an investment and putting it toward savings. But just start with the one that’s easiest to pay off the fastest. Get those accounts paid off. If you’ve got a six-year loan, try to pay it off in four. The faster you pay it off, that also helps your credit score,” White said.
Hear the full interview and more in Season 3, Episode 2 of “Black Men Sundays.”
Black Men Sundays talks about building generational wealth. Check out every episode in the media player below.