Hey guys! I hope you are having an amazing week so far! This week we’re going to be talking about personal finance, so feel free to skip to the bottom if this isn’t’ your thing. If it is, please do read on for what I hope to be useful advice 😊
If there’s one thing I wish I worked on early in life, it definitely would be personal finance and in particular, my credit. Here is why having good credit is important:
•📱 Being able to take out things like phone contracts or cars on finance involves needing good credit.
•🏡 When renting or buying a house one day or if you ever need to take out a loan for something, good credit will allow you to do so.
•✈️ You can leverage good scores into good deals such as in taking out loans, credit cards and insurance premiums which can be helpful to you. I have a few credit cards that give me loads of perks like free access to airport lounges and cashback on my purchase.
If these things seem trivial to you right now (they certainly did for me, especially when I was younger), I promise you they won’t be one day. If you’ve ever thought about improving your credit score or not sure where to get started, here are a few things you can do right now to improve your score:
1)❓ Find out what your credit score is right now by going to CreditKarma or Experian.
2)💻 These websites will suggest which credit cards you might be eligible for. My first ones were through my bank as a student credit card and my second one was with Capital One. You don’t need to be earning a salary necessarily to have a credit card! Having credit on your cards will improve your score but do your research on how they work first. Once you get a credit card you can start paying for things with it and immediately paying it back so that you have no interest to pay whilst also improving your score. Treat credit as you would normal cash and not to pay for things you can’t afford.
3)📹 Watch this video by Graham Stephan. He is my go-to person with learning about personal finance!
4)💸 Make sure you pay back all of your bills e.g phone bill on time if you are not already.
Over time your credit score will improve and you’ll be able to start leveraging the perks that come with it. A few years ago I knew nothing about credit and was rejected from any credit card company I applied for. After working on my credit, I was recently approved for my newest credit card with more than £10,000 to spend on it and I’ll definitely be using it to get as much cashback as possible, since using debit cards doesn’t give you anything in return (this card was from American Express btw).
I hope this gives you something to think about and I would love to hear your opinion on this. Please reply to this email with any thoughts that you might have. Enjoy your weekend and I’ll catch you guys on the next one! :)
Kenji.
👍🏾 Things I’ve enjoyed this week
• There is No Planet B (book) - I started this in Italy and it’s a great book that talks about how we can reduce our carbon footprint in the world and the effects that our lives every day have on our planet.
•The Lean Startup (book) - I only just started this, but it’s supposedly a really good book about starting up your own company. Will keep you updated on how it goes!
•The Tim Ferris Show (podcast) - in his latest episode, he goes into detail about the future of cryptocurrencies and things related to that. I highly recommend if you’re a tech nerd too!
🙇🏽♂️ What I’m working on
We’re going ahead with the medicine interview webinar which I mentioned to you guys no the last issue, which will be this Saturday the 20th. If you’ve applied to medicine this year and looking to get some practice for the interviews, you can find more info here.
📚 Highlight of the week
Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty
We tend to expect every person to be a complete package, giving us everything we need. This is setting the bar impossibly high. It’s as hard to find that person as it is to be that person. The four types of trust will help us keep in mind what we can and can’t expect from them. Even your partner can’t provide care, character, competence, and consistency in all ways at all times. Care and character, yes, but nobody is competent in all things, and though your partner should be reliable, nobody is consistently available in the way you need them. We expect our life partner to be our everything, to “complete us” (thanks, Jerry Maguire), but even within that deep and lifelong union, only you can be your everything.
Happiness nav.al
You can achieve happiness without financial wealth. Most of us recognize you’re not going to buy your way to happiness. But in modern times, you can buy your way out of common causes of unhappiness. Financial wealth can give you freedom and more time. It can give you peace.