At the age of 24, I beat the odds against me as an inner city, single mother and graduated college with a Masters Degree in Social Work. At the start of my career I was earning less than 30k a year! Financially, I struggled to provide for myself and my son, mostly due to lack of knowledge. I didn’t know how to manage my money and certainly not my credit. I didn’t learn much about managing finances at school or home. I just knew how to “make it”
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But “making it”, wasn’t cutting it. I had no budget, no savings and a credit score of 471! My credit report was filled with judgements, collections, late pays and charge offs. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to pay my bills or felt they weren’t important, but there were times when I had to decide if I was going to pay my cable bill or my car note. I always chose the latter
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I felt trapped by my money woes. I wasn’t progressing in life the way I wanted to. The only thing I could finance in my name was a small car and the interest rate was so high, I paid nearly 3x the original price at the end of the loan agreement. One evening, I told myself “My future will not be held hostage by my current circumstance”. I was finally fed up and decided to take charge of my finances, starting with my credit
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Within in two years, I was able to purchase my first home. To date, my credit score has gone up by more than 250 points! Being able to utilize my credit to purchase my home, a new car, etc has come with a sense of accomplishment, empowerment and confidence. But overall, the sense of peace I have is second to none
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I knew that I couldn’t keep this journey to myself. Not only did I want to share it with other people, but I also wanted to help other women and families who may be facing issues similar to mine. In 2015 I became a Certified Credit Consultant and in 2016, founded Ally Credit Consulting, a credit repair company, with a mission to help others obtain confidence and peace of mind when it comes to their credit
