Karen Gurley is 2010 Schwab Financial Literacy Award winner.
Her book Credit ABCs for Girls–Inspiring Positive Credit Responsibility for Life helps many girls to keep up with their credit scores.
Hi, this is Li. Today, I write on her case and perceive many tips about the credit scores!
P.s. Please pardon my English grammar errors. I am an international student, posting from Beijing, China this summer. Thanks!
Karen as a role model
Plugging in the wings of imagination and adventure, Karen started trying her credit business since college. Karen describes herself as a “dreamer,” and wanted to make her family proud of her. Financial independence was always something Karen desired. The desire to be independent helped her getting the first credit card with excitement.
The entrepreneurial spirit in us all
Karen later got variety of credit cards, such as gas cards and department store cards. And even those cards do not have any limitations on spending. However, this excitement of a credit card did not keep Karen for long, and later on turn out to be a great disaster for her. Without paying back on time, Karen soon developed a credit problem. Although she got a job directly after college and paid back all the money, her credit problem remains unchanged.
Overcoming challenges
Credit problems hinder her in banking and monetary issues. Karen has to come up some ideas about how to solve it. So, she tries to build up her credit as long as she could. She found out that credit scores are not only used by lenders, but also by some insurance companies and service providers. She started earning credit through them. Since then, she no longer worried about if the company would hire her with a bad credit records. Later, Karen shared her experiences with other women and girls, and found out that her experience is not unique. She decided to use her experience to educate other girls about the importance of building credits scores. She finally developed her experience into a book, named Credit ABCs for Girls – Inspiring Positive Credit Responsibility for Life.
My career learning from Karen
I actually never had a U.S. credit card, so I don’t really know how it works. But when I was an exchange student in Charleston, WV, my host parents told me that getting a credit card was a pretty serious thing since it is related to credit scores. From Karen’s experience, I will pay more attention and be very careful about it. Sometime, people do not want to share their unhappy experience, but Karen did and educated us. I think she is very brave and wise.
Li’s friend’s comment
I am going to buy her book! I think it will be very helpful for me, especially I just got a “security credit card”. Thanks!
Shiqi Qi, University of Michigan’ 2014, Finance
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