Take Care of Your Credit Score, with Ryan Guth

Choir Ninja, with Ryan Guth

As choir directors, we train hard to be able to help our singers and students. But whether you studied Music Ed or Sacred Music, it’s unlikely that financial literacy was part of your program. Today Ryan outlines how to read your credit report, and gives some simple tips for strengthening your credit score.

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[Subscribe on iTunes] [Subscribe on Android] Highlight to Tweet: “Nobody’s going to spend crazy on the gas, because then it starts overflowing and catches fire.” Show Notes:

• Why should you care about your credit score?
  • Other important people will care about your credit score: mortgages, insurance companies, auto loans, furniture stores, your future employers
  • Your piece of mind
  • It helps you set quantifiable goals
  • Identity fraud: who else is using your social security number?
  • Catch errors on your report

• Try Creditkarma.com, a free web service
  • Transunion
  • Equifax

• Dave Ramsey’s podcast
• What’s important to look for:
  • Credit card use: keep it under 30%
  • Payment history: 100%
  • Derogatory remarks
• No credit history? Establish one with something easy to pay off, like gas.
• Derogatory comments? Call them. See if you can get it removed. Often they are willing to work with you.
• Request a credit limit increase. Don’t use it; but having it available improves your credit use percentage.

Bio: Having spent most of his middle and high school career in detention, Ryan Guth loves to speak to audiences about ways for choral directors to engage the seemingly un-engageable. Ryan learned fearlessness and indomitable spirit from a young age through many years studying the martial arts while also pursuing music – especially the time in middle school when he tried to break a board with his head in front his entire ninth grade class and failed spectacularly. He believes the best choir directors face challenges head-on (no pun intended), are solutions-oriented, and take full responsibility forall aspects of their program. Ryan’s most popular and surprisingly positive article “Your Choir Sucks Because You Suck” was shared over 2,200 times in 48 hours, and has since become his manifesto, mantra, and the platform that his work was built upon. Through his first podcast, Find Your Forte, Ryan connected thousands of weekly listeners with some of the most brilliant minds in choral music such as Helmuth Rilling, Patrick Quigley, Joseph Flummerfelt, James Bass, and 80-plus others. He recognizes the fact we become the best when we learn from the best. Ryan Guth recently created the Choir Ninja podcast to share solutions with middle and high school choral directors so they learn to work smarter – not harder. That’s why he focuses on sharing what works in choral programs across Choir Nation in a way that makes running a great choral program approachable, fun, and rewarding. When not dressing up in his ninja jammies or buffing his diploma from Westminster Choir College, Ryan is a high school choir director in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Before that, he spent a decade building a large middle school program and six-figure-choral-ensemble-based-for-profit-business in central New Jersey. He is also the founder and sole member of the Hyphenation Club of America. Ryan enjoys getting lost outdoors with his beautiful fiancé, Amanda, and pitbull-lab Sasha. He also dislikes socks and only wears them when absolutely necessary. This bio was sponsored by Gold Bond Powder. Resources/links Mentioned:

• www.creditkarma.com
• Dave Ramsey
• Choir Nation group on Facebook
• Email Patreon - Support the podcast!

Sponsored by: Sight Reading Factory (Use promo code “NINJA” at checkout for 10 free student accounts!) My Music Folders (Use promo code “NINJA” at checkout for “last column” or best pricing - usually reserved for bulk purchases only!)