Stretch to Prosperity

Hard work pays off. Once you're able to start saving and regularly managing your credit, a large purchase, like a home or a car, or starting a business may be on the horizon for you. These milestones, in turn, can help you build a strong financial foundation, not only for yourself but for future generations to come.

A long-term goal like building generational wealth relies, in part, on access to capital and other resources often hard to find in the Black community. But it also relies on the healthy habits and financial plan you've followed to get here.

The resources below, powered by TransUnion®, can help you maintain and amplify the hard work you've put in to create a secure financial future.

To continue stretching to prosperity on your credit journey, we'll explore:

Understanding of advanced financial practices, such as investing
Maintaining and increasing your credit score
Buying a home or making other large purchases

Building and establishing credit within the Black community is important now more than ever. When we look at the current state of the economy, in tandem with the need for community uplift and sustainability, it's pertinent that Black people place importance on building our credit scores so we can ensure community prosperity

- Derrick Johnson, President and CEO, NAACP

FAQs

Get the answers on how to continue to protect your financial journey.

If you have multiple credit cards or use your credit cards a lot, you should be mindful of your credit utilization rate. It's one of the biggest factors in your credit score calculations. Basically, credit utilization measures how much credit you're using compared to your available credit limit. The lower your utilization rate, the better it is for your credit score. Ideally, your utilization should be as low as possible. Work toward this by avoiding unnecessary large purchases and paying more than the minimum payment due by the statement due date.
Learn more about using credit cards responsibly
Many have been impacted by economic factors outside of our control. Making financial plans can feel demotivating if money is tight, but understanding your goals is the key to making productive financial decisions.
- Know where you stand. Make sure you continue to monitor your credit report and score. Checking your credit report helps you baseline your credit health and enables you to keep track of any changes to your credit history, which may in turn affect your score.
- Continue making payments. Your payment history is an important factor in calculating your credit score, so making on-time payments consistently, if you're able, is a good way to protect your credit health. If you think you may struggle to pay, talk to the company you have the account with as soon as you can, before you miss the payment.
- Guard against fraud. With new and sometimes confusing information out there about student debt relief and programs to help navigate economic hardships, the environment is ripe with opportunities for fraudsters. If someone gets access to important information like your Social Security number, they can wreak havoc on your finances and credit health. Remember, no government organization will ask you to share sensitive information over the phone, email, or text message. Only use official government websites when submitting information online.
Learn more about protecting your credit

Going Further: We want your feedback!

Our goal is to keep you equipped with information vital to your financial health. Submit any credit questions you'd like to see answered in future updates to this toolkit.

Disclaimer: Please do not submit any sensitive, personal identifying information (i.e. SSN, driver's license, financial records, etc.)

I'm ready to buy a house. How should I prepare my credit for this large purchase?

Does running up high credit card balances help or hurt my credit?

I'm worried about navigating inflation, a possible recession, and other tricky economic environments. What can I do to protect my credit?

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