← Kreatures Of Habit Podcast 
Kreatures Of Habit Podcast
How to Take Control of Your Money and Reach Financial Freedom | Michael Chernow | Monday Moments
00:10:05
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
When I started this journey of better living, of just changing my life, when I finally checked my credit score, I think it was in the low 3 hundreds. Now my credit score is 847, and the highest credit score you can get is an 850. I've created these little habits that have just offered peace of mind. It's really, really hard to save, save money. And I believe in saving money. And so if you can automatically set it up for yourself, like, before you know it, you've got, like, a pile of money that you've saved. An entrepreneur straight out of New York City, Michael Chernow. What's cracking? What up, everybody? Welcome back to the Creatures of Habit podcast. This is another Monday moment coming at you live. Coming at. Well, not live, but I'm sitting here live recording it. I want to talk today about some financial habits that I've implemented into my life over the last decade or so. First and foremost, I want to talk to you about credit score. My credit score is 847. That is my credit score. And the highest credit score you can get is an 8:50. And when I started this journey of better living, of just changing my life, I had a mentor that said, what's your credit score? This is going back 20 years. And I said, I have no idea. But I did know that I had an enormous amount of unpaid parking tickets. I had defaulted Sallie Mae student loan that I went. You know, I went to Hunter College for one year and slept through most of it and never paid my student loan. I had a lot of stuff in debt after years of abuse and addiction. And when I finally checked my credit score, I think it was in the low three hundreds. And so this mentor of mine said, you know, we're gonna work on getting your credit score back up to a number that will actually allow you to, like, have some leverage. And I had no idea what leverage meant at that time. Now I do. But he had me go get a prepaid bank of America card. I don't know if they still do that, but if they do and you have a low credit score, you struggle with your credit. This is a great way to build backup credit. So you get one of these prepaid credit cards, and you put money on it every month. It doesn't have to be a lot. You spend that money and you pay. You reload the card every single month. And that is the way I built my credit. And now my credit score from starting just that way is all the way up to 847. I've got perfect credit and having that credit score really, really is a. It gives me peace of mind if I. And, you know, I don't really, because I'm an entrepreneur. It makes credit difficult anyway and like getting a mortgage. But like, if I wanted to lease a car or finance a car or finance anything really with my credit score, it makes it very, very easy. So credit score is critical. And if you guys have not paid attention to your credit score or you don't have a great credit score, I highly recommend finding a prepaid credit card that will allow you to start building your credit score in a positive way. That's credit score. Now. Ways that I think about the future is. And I've been. I've been lucky, right? I've had some successes over the last 15, 16 years as an entrepreneur. I've had some wins, and I've invested in real estate, and I've got a portfolio that I have someone help me manage. But aside from that, what I do on a monthly basis and sometimes on a weekly basis, is when I get my salary from creatures of habit and my brand deal revenue goes into my account every single week. I have a certain amount of money that I automatically have transferred into different accounts. I have $200 a week, and this is for me. Obviously, everybody has different financial situations, but I have $200 a week that I automatically invest into crypto. I'm not one of these guys that's gonna go buy an enormous amount of crypto, but I do believe in crypto to some extent, and I don't want to be the guy that's like, pants down when all of a sudden this thing actually does happen. So every, every week, I invest $200 into crypto, and it happens automatically. Every month I have a certain amount of money that I have automatically transferred into a tax savings account so that when tax time comes, it's a high yield savings account. When tax time comes, I'm never surprised. I'm never like, in a position where I'm like, oh, my God, I don't have money to pay my taxes because every month it automatically transfers. I don't think about it, it just automatically transfers. And every single month, I have money that automatically transfers into a portfolio account for my children, so that I am putting money into an account on a monthly basis and it's going towards my kids. And I'm here to say that, like, having those automatic transfers has made it so much easier to save money. Having money sitting in a bank account doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Now look again, I know that I'm speaking to not everybody, but I did want to share this because it's been so helpful for me as my life has evolved and as I get, you know, as I get more mature as a financial human, I've created these little habits that have just offered peace of mind that I know that I'm saving money. It's really, really hard to save money. And I believe in saving money. And so if you can automatically set it up for yourself and so that you don't have to like think about putting money into a savings account or putting money into an investment account and you just have it automatically deducted. It really does. Like, before you know it, you've got like a pile of money that you've saved. It's a lot harder to do if you, if you are relying on every month you go in and make the transfer. So I know that this is a little off topic for creatures of habit Monday moments, but I really did wanted to share that because I think we tend to not think about things like this. And these are little tips that I have implemented into my life that have actually been like, pretty significant. You know, if my accountant does everything well, hopefully at the end of the year I'm not like hit with a massive tax bill and I pay quarterly taxes. But it's for the five or six years that I've been putting, I've been transferring money on a monthly basis into a high yield savings tax account. At the end of the year, I end up with like a chunk of money that I end up investing. So I just wanted to share that with you guys. I think not enough people talk about financial literacy and ways to optimize financially in our community. There's a lot of people talking about financial stuff in, I don't know, like kind of snake oily ways, seedy ways, make, you know, get rich quick ways. That shit never works. No one gets rich quick. You just don't. It's not a reality unless you're doing something really shady and you know, potential ramification of getting rich quick lands you in jail. So I just wanted to hit you guys with some of those little tips that I do. The automatic transfer out of your checking account into a tax account or into a portfolio account or into an investment fund for your kids, if you have kids, have it automatically transferred is just so much nicer than having to do it on your own and typically forgetting to do it. And then potentially when tax season comes, you're left with your pants down because you haven't thought about your tax bill at the end of the year. And, you know, it's tax time right now as we're speaking. And so that was. That's what kind of like, cued me to want to talk about this. I don't worry about tax season anymore because I have it automatically transferred out of my account anyway. If this helped you pass it to someone who you also think it may help, leaving us a review would be wonderful. Five star rating. Awesome. And subscribing would be even better. I appreciate you guys. Super grateful for this community. Until the next one, y'. All. Peace. Ra.