Beyonce Has Had an Eye on Her Credit Destiny for Years
No one likes a moocher. In this clip fromIndustry Focus: Financials,Gaby Lapera, Jason Moser, and Mark Reeth look at the hit song, Bills, Bills, Bills.
Then, they discuss why it's so important to keep a sharp eye on your credit score, how and why to avoid dating a leech, how to develop a good credit score without going into debt, the pitfalls of conspicuous consumption, and more.
A full transcript follows the video.
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This podcast was recorded on Aug. 1, 2016.
Gaby Lapera: So, onto the fiercest lady of all time, Beyonc, and her song Bills, Bills, Bills. [Editor's note: This is actually a relatively early Destiny's Child track. While Queen B was, of course, part of the group that wrote and performed the chart-topping hit, credit must be given where it's due, to LeToya Luckett, LaTavia Roberson, and Kelly Rowland as well.] Jason Moser, I would love to hear you read this.
Jason Moser: Well, OK.
Lapera: Give it some sass!
Moser: "Now you've been maxing out my card/Gave me bad credit, buyin' me gifts with my own ends/Haven't paid the first bill/But instead you're headin' to the mall/ Goin' on shopping sprees/ Perpetrating to your friends like you be ballin'."
Mark Reeth: That was good! I would watch that concert.
Lapera: That was fierce.
Reeth: That was solid.
Moser: She's serious.
Lapera: This speaks to a few different topics that we've already covered. One, picking a good partner. That speaks to the prenuptial agreements, but also here, we see some stuff about bad credit, so clearly Beyonc is on top of her FICO score, checking it regularly on creditkarma.com. I'm not a shill for them, I actually just think they're a really great free service. Now that I've said that though ...
Moser: Now you've got to go use it, creditkarma.com
Lapera: I don't know. What do you guys think about this?
Reeth: I think you made a good point. You've got to keep an eye on your credit score. Again, not to expose my own financial flaws too thoroughly today, but I definitely didn't pay attention to my credit score for very long time, and living in Washington, D.C., as we mentioned earlier, is not cheap. I learned that very much the hard way when I came into some credit card debt for a couple months there a little while back. It took me a while to unbury myself from that. I think a lot of that could've been avoided if I was paying more attention, if I was looking at my FICO scores and my credit scores and my credit card in general, and not just hoping for the best. So yeah, I think Beyonc like you said, she's on top of it and you should be to.
Moser: I like also the idea here, going all the way back to the very beginning here, when you were talking about [how] money doesn't necessarily buy happiness, and it's this individual buying something for someone with that person's money thinking is going to make her happy, and really he's making her doubly angry because he's giving her something that she doesn't need and he's putting her in debt in the process.
Lapera: Beyonc maybe should've thought twice about adding him as an authorized user on her credit card.
Moser: Very good point.
Reeth: Yep, absolutely.
Moser: Very good point. Protect your identity. Protect your financial resources. It's tough to do. We live in a credit-based economy. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just you have to understand how that works.
Lapera: Yeah.
Moser: Credit can be good. You just need to make sure you don't overextend yourself.
Lapera: That's true. You need to have a credit card. That doesn't mean you need to go into debt. I think that's one of the most common misconceptions about how to build your credit score. People think you should carry a balance from month to month, and really that doesn't help you. In fact, the credit companies are looking to see that you're paying off your bill in full every month.
Reeth: Credit where it's due, to Beyonce. That's some good financial advice.
Lapera: The last line of this is also interesting: "Perpetrating to your friends that you be ballin'," and harking back to Veblin's conspicuous consumption.
Reeth: Liar!
Moser: Sure, and what is that theory again?
Lapera: In the most basic terms, basically, kind of keeping up with the Jones', buying stuff to make people think that you ... have special power.
Reeth: Ballin'.
Lapera: Yeah, ballin', that you're ballin'. That's what Veblin said in the 1800s --
Reeth: Is that you ballin'?
Lapera: That's me balling. I'm throwing a basketball. This goes back to our thrift store conversation on being OK with hand-me-downs, frugality. There's no reason you can't be ballin' while saving money.
Reeth: Ballin' on a budget, absolutely.
Lapera: Ballin' on a budget, I like that.
Moser: Ballin' really is just a state of mind.
Reeth: Amen, brother. Amen.
Lapera: Yeah.
Moser: You could be ballin' by starting your own sort of trend. It's very easy to follow along. It's much more difficult to stray from the path and start your own little thing.
Lapera: Yeah, there's a lot of wisdom here with Beyonc.
Reeth: Well, it's Beyonc, so...
Lapera: That's so true.
Reeth: Of course it is.
Lapera: She tells women to be independent and I agree with her. You go, girl!
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