Page 14 - Winning The Credit Game Bundle (CK Patrick)

2 THE CREDIT GAME

talking about on TV, but which never actually became relevant in our
lives.
Later, I would learn the long history of government policies that
facilitated wealth for white Americans and not blacks. If we’d known
more about credit and finance, we might not have felt the need to
borrow money we could not repay. We might have actually had that life
of ownership and wealth that we spent our time and credit dreaming
of.
I had saved up enough money to start college, and borrowed
several thousands more to pay the ongoing costs of tuition. I’d gotten
good grades, following the pre-Recession wisdom of getting the most
prestigious education I could under the assumption that this would
pay massive financial dividends. Unfortunately, I also had the Reces-
sion to worry about. Like so many people, I found that the degree I
had paid so much for did not pay me back as much as I’d been
promised.
After graduation, I was in trouble. I had finally discovered the truth
about credit scores at the worst possible time. The truth was, if you
had a bad credit score, you could find yourself out on the street.
Landlords were running credit checks, and turning me down for
housing when they saw my frightening credit score. I couldn’t buy or
rent a car without paying extortionary double-digit interest rates and
heavy down payments because of my poor credit. I was even denied a
promising job after a would-be employer ran a credit check and
decided that my irresponsible financial history would make me a
liability to their company.
These past years, as I’d been using alternative methods like dead
end jobs, selling drugs, financial aid, government assistance, and credit
cards to survive motherhood and college, I had borrowed money
without paying it back. Now I was being told that I couldn’t pay it
back, because I was being denied employment and forced to take ultra-
high-interest loans which cost far more than paying out of pocket with
cash would have cost me.
This is the trap of poverty: it is expensive to be poor. Everything
costs more when you can only afford to buy a little at a time. Every-