I grew up in a single-parent home, in a neighborhood where money was always tight. I was surrounded by working-class people that did their best to make ends meet at jobs that were not fulfilling to them. Those were tough circumstances, but they motivated me to get a good education so that I could change my family’s economic situation.
When I was 18, I wanted to enjoy my last bit of freedom before going off to college. So I got my first credit card. It came with a $500 credit limit and I maxed it out in one day going to restaurants with my friends and buying cute clothes I could wear to class when college started. A month later I got the credit card bill, looked at it, and tossed it in the trash.
I severely underestimated how that would affect me in the next few months.
When college started that fall, my friend and I went to open bank accounts. That’s when reality hit me. My credit score, 495, was so low that the bank refused to open an account for me. I was embarrassed when the branch manager told me this and my friend watched from a distance.
That experience in college completely changed how I thought about credit. I started monitoring my reports and scores every month via a service offered by my bank. I spent the next year disputing negative items, also known as derogatory marks, which led to them being removed from my credit report. This practice helped me raise my credit score by 300 points.
Ultimately, this tough period in my life became an inspiration for the side hustle that helped me earn $100,000 in passive income in five months.
I led with my personal experience
Last summer, I was looking for a side hustle that could help pay for my son’s daycare expenses. My 9-to-5 job had just informed me that I would be taking a major pay cut, and I needed to boost my income before my maternity leave started. The answer was right in front of me.
I already had a blueprint that had helped me raise my credit score by 300 points. And after I improved my score, I spent the next six years doing credit consultations for friends, family and people in my community, doing that as a side gig in between my college classes.
I knew from that experience that credit was an evergreen and fairly universal topic. And I knew that I was far from alone in struggling with it. So at eight months pregnant, in August of 2021, I decided to take what I had learned and create a digital kit that others could use as a resource to help them manage their credit.
It was important to me to make the product more affordable compared to more traditional credit repair agencies, a baseline which helped me figure out what I felt comfortable charging.
Courtesy:— Grow.Acorns