Online Class: Understanding and Managing Your Personal Credit
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15Lessons
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31Exams &
Assignments -
5Hours
average time -
0.5CEUs
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Video Audit
Available
Course Description
Mastering Credit Management: Your Guide to Financial Freedom
In today's complex financial landscape, credit plays a pivotal role in shaping our lifestyle choices, aspirations, and opportunities. From buying a dream home, driving the latest car, or navigating day-to-day expenses, credit undeniably influences our financial trajectory. However, an overwhelming number of individuals find themselves ensnared in the complexities of credit, often leading to a suffocating cycle of debt that feels almost insurmountable.
While falling into debt might seem easy, especially given today's economic challenges, climbing out of it demands dedication, knowledge, and the right strategy. Our course provides an illuminating path to not only managing but mastering your credit, offering you the tools and insights to regain control of your financial well-being.
Recent data highlights an alarming trend: an increasing number of individuals are leveraging credit to sustain their lifestyles, pushing them closer to financial precarity. But it's never too late to turn things around. Your financial destiny is in your hands, and with the right guidance, you can shift from feeling submerged in debt to standing tall on solid financial ground.
Course Overview:
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Understanding Credit: Dive deep into the very essence of credit—how it works, its implications, and its importance in our daily lives.
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Deciphering Credit Scores: Learn what goes behind that three-digit number, from how it's calculated to its profound impact on your borrowing capabilities.
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Credit Influence Factors: Grasp the myriad elements that can sway your credit score, from loan applications to payment histories.
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Navigating Credit Cards: Unpack the intricacies of credit cards—the boon and bane of modern finance.
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Demystifying Foreclosure and Bankruptcy: Understand these dire financial situations, their causes, implications, and ways to navigate them.
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Decoding Debt to Income Ratio: Learn how this crucial ratio can influence your borrowing potential and ways to optimize it.
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The Debt Spiral: Recognize the early signs of this treacherous cycle and strategies to prevent its onset.
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Guidance on Debt Counseling & Consolidation: Discover professional avenues to manage and reduce your debt effectively.
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Living Within Your Means: Embrace sustainable financial habits that prioritize needs over wants.
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Budgeting Essentials: Master the art of crafting and adhering to a budget, ensuring every dollar is accounted for.
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Staying Financially Disciplined: Cultivate habits and mindsets that safeguard you from future debt pitfalls.
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Navigating Credit Reports: Learn to read, interpret, and utilize these crucial financial documents to your advantage.
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Rectifying Credit Errors: Equip yourself with the knowledge to identify and rectify inaccuracies that could be pulling your credit score down.
Rebuilding and maintaining a strong credit profile isn't a sprint but a marathon. It demands consistent effort, informed decisions, and sometimes even a touch of sacrifice. However, the rewards—a stress-free financial life, enhanced borrowing capabilities, and a sense of accomplishment—are truly invaluable.
Our course amalgamates expert knowledge, actionable strategies, and real-life examples to empower you with a roadmap to credit excellence. Having already assisted countless individuals in enhancing their credit scores and reshaping their financial destinies, we're confident that with commitment and our guidance, you too can experience the liberating feeling of financial freedom.
Join us on this transformative journey and reshape your financial future. Your path to credit mastery starts here.
Course Motivation
So, what exactly is credit and how did it become something that we all use and need throughout our day-to-day lives?
Essentially, credit is the granting of a loan from one party to another, where the second party is not required to reimburse the first party in full immediately, but can repay over a certain set period of time. This is debt, and it affects nearly everyone in the Western world. The first party is always referred to as the creditor or lender, while the second party is the debtor or borrower. Like a relationship between certain fish and sharks, or birds and crocodiles, these two need each other. The lender needs to have someone to lend to, or they cease to exist, so the debtor is their other half, their Yang to the Yin. You probably get the idea.
Typically, any large movement of financial capital is dependent on credit, and this becomes dependent on the reputation of the individual for how much credit they are allowed to borrow, often called creditworthiness.
Credit has become a huge part of our lives and it is actually very hard to get away from it. Many companies these days will offer credit to their customers as part of a purchase agreement. It is rare these days, when you make a payment at the till, that you are not asked if you want to get the company's credit card for cheaper purchases. Many choose to go with these store credit cards on impulse alone, which can have problems for many in the future.
There are several forms of credit that a person or company can have, with the most common being:
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Credit Cards
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Mortgages
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Car Loans
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Lines of Credit
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Leases
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Loans
These are just a few of the types of credit a company or person can have, but they are by far the most common of all the types.
In the United States, credit is a way of life, but what are the stats that relate to it? How do you compare as a consumer to other consumers with your credit situation? Are you above, or below the average, and do you have something to worry about?
In terms of total consumer credit on credit cards, it equals an astonishing $1.7 trillion. Each American has an average of about $8,562 credit card debt at this very moment, and the total finance charges that are paid by Americans each year is about $50 billion.
Most households -- 78 percent -- are deemed credit worthy by the lending industry, but that being said, about 1.3 million people declare bankruptcy each year.
One very good indication of how much people are in debt is their debt-to-income ratio. This ratio, which will be addressed later in more detail, determines just how much someone pays from their net income toward debt payments. Right now, the average ratio is about 14 percent. That means that the average consumer uses 14 percent of their yearly income to pay their mortgage, as well as auto and personal loans, and credit cards. That means that if you make $33,000 per year, net-income, then you pay $4,620 each year in debt payments.
Credit is a unique beast. It is something that everyone uses, and everyone needs, but it can be a double-edged sword for many. While it can give you a house, car, and items you really cannot afford, it can also spiral out of control and begin to hold you down as you attempt to rise above the debt water before you are swept away.
Credit is something that you have to deal with, and sometimes you deal with it the wrong way and you lose your credit. What do you do in this situation? Well, thankfully credit is something that can be repaired. You can fix your credit; it just takes time. That is the one good thing about credit, it is not set in stone and it can be repaired. In this course, you will find out how.
Course Lessons
Lesson 1: What Is Credit?
What Is Credit?
Forms of Credit
Credit StatsLesson 2: What Is A Credit Score?
What Is A Credit Score? FICO Score How Is The Score Calculated? Range of ScoresLesson 3: How Is Your Credit Affected?
How Is Your Credit Affected? Paying Bills Applying For Credit Credit Cards Foreclosure BankruptcyLesson 4: Credit Cards
Credit Cards How Many Cards? Minimum Payments Cash AdvancesLesson 5: Foreclosure
Lesson 5: ForeclosureLesson 6: Bankruptcy
Lesson 6:Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy and Credit Score
Bankruptcy StatisticsLesson 7: Debt-to-Income Ratio
Lesson 7: Debt-to-Income Ratio
Why Does It Matter?
How Do You Lower It?
What Is The Best Ratio?
What Is The Worst Ratio?Lesson 8: The Debt Spiral
Lesson 8: The Debt Spiral
Getting Out of the SpiralLesson 9: Debt Counseling
Lesson 9:Debt Counseling
A Brief History of Credit Counseling
A Good Choice?
Be CarefulLesson 10: Debt Consolidation
Lesson 10: Debt Consolidation
When To Get It
Predatory Lending
Loans Versus Debt ConsolidationLesson 11: Living Within Your Means
Living Within Your Means
Credit Is Not Cash
Limiting Purchases
Planning Ahead
Sell What Is Not Needed
Think About Purchases
Go for Lower Interest RatesLesson 12: Budgeting
Budgeting
Making a Budget
Things That Can Ruin a Good Budget
What About Slip-Ups?Lesson 13: Tips for Staying on Track
Tips for Staying on Track
Can it Be Done?Lesson 14 : Credit Reports
Credit Reports
How Often to Check?
Who Provides Them?
How Many Use Credit Reports?
Advantages of Credit ReportsLesson 15: Credit Errors
Credit Errors
How to Prevent Them
Fix the Errors
Keeping Detailed Records
How Much Can It Damage?
Learning Outcomes
- Define what credit is.
- Describe what a credit score is.
- Describe what affects your credit score.
- Define what a credit card is how that affects your credit score.
- Describe the foreclosure process and what it does to your credit report.
- Describe the bankruptcy process and how that affects your credit report.
- Define the Debt to Income Ratio.
- Summarize how people end up in a 'debt spiral'.
- Summarize the pros and cons of debt counseling.
- Summarize the pros and cons of debt consolidation.
- Summarize methods to live within your means.
- Create a budget.
- Request your credit reports.
- Summarize methods to correct errors on your credit reports.
- Demonstrate mastery of lesson content at levels of 70% or higher.
Additional Course Information
- Document Your Lifelong Learning Achievements
- Earn an Official Certificate Documenting Course Hours and CEUs
- Verify Your Certificate with a Unique Serial Number Online
- View and Share Your Certificate Online or Download/Print as PDF
- Display Your Certificate on Your Resume and Promote Your Achievements Using Social Media
Student Testimonials
- "Very available and provided feedback on all my lessons." -- David N.
- "Great subject! Great instructor! I love Universal Class!" -- Carmen R.
- "Every part of the course was helpful to me. I used to deal with credit repair years ago so this was like a refresher course.It was a very helpful experience." -- Hector R.
- "The court was perfect. HE'S a Great instructor." -- Janet D.
- "Very helpful information about repairing credit. I enjoyed taking this course." -- Marie C.
- "My instructor was the greatest. He always got back with me in a timely matter and gave me excellent answers. I hope I get his for all my others classes that I will be taking with Universal Class." -- Glenda W.
- "This class teaches more than Managing Credit. It deals with debt, debt to equity, debt to income ratios, budgeting, and more. I would recommend it to a lot of young people who are starting out before they become innudated with debt." -- DrEarl W.
- "the instructor is very diligent. Always communicated the results in a timely fashion." -- Nestor M.
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