So I Graduated, Now What Do I Do?

By Talaya Scott

So I Graduated, Now What Do I Do? is an entertaining, comprehensive, and all-inclusive read on real-life financial concepts that are not being taught in urban community schools. This easy read takes you on a practical path of a girl who struggled in an urban community, as a single mother of three, trying to figure out life in financial management. Her financial losses, struggles, and bad decisions become the reader's gain as lessons in financial literacy are taught. This book informs and educates the reader on how to properly implement the financial lessons in their own lives. Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. -Nelson Mandela

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645594451

Book preview

So I Graduated, Now What Do I Do?

A Practical Experience of a Journey to Financial Freedom

Talaya Scott

ISBN 978-1-64559-444-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64559-445-1 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 Talaya Scott

All rights reserved

First Edition

All scriptures, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Foreword

Aim High in the Air force

My Life as I Knew It

Lesson 1: Credit is Chess, Not Checkers

Credit Score

Credit Risk

The Credit Family (Components of Credit)

Proper Introduction to the Credit Game

Best Ways to Hurt Your Score

Repairing Bad Credit

Interest

How Interest Works

Credit Cards vs Charge Cards

Credit Monitoring Services

Growing Up in a Cold, Cold World

Lesson 2: The Car Buying Process

Before Considering

Option 1: Financing Your Car

What Is a Classic Car?

Option 2: Cash Purchases

The Financing Process

In-House Financing

Lesson 3: Payday Loans

From Veteran to Veteran Mom

Becoming a Mom

Lesson 4: Life and Car Insurance

Car Insurance

Life

Types of Insurance Policies

The Process of Obtaining Life Insurance

What Am I Here For? Where Do I FIIT?

Lesson 5: The Home Buying Process

Step 1: Know how you score before meeting with a mortgage loan officer.

Step 2: After you are certain your credit is in good standing (680 or higher) and money is saved for a down payment), the next step is to meet with a banker.

Step 3: Application and corresponding documentation are transmitted to underwriting for conditional approval.

Step 4: You are granted a preapproval

Step 5: Place your bid on the home you love.

Step 6: It’s closing time!

Lesson 6: Why Taxes?

Filing Status and Exemptions (Red Box)

Income (Red Box)

Adjusted Gross Income (Blue Box)

Tax and Credits (Purple Box)

Payments and Refunds (Yellow and Orange Box)

Lesson 7: Investments

So What about Money?

Savings

Investments

Stocks

Bonds

Mutual Funds and Exchange Traded Funds

What Now?You Never Could Afford This Life

Lesson 8: Bankruptcy

A Revamped Life

A Foreign Land

Lesson 9: Grace and Tithing

Grace

Tithing

About the Author

Heavenly Father, creator of all. I would like to take this time to dedicate all that I am back to you. You brought me on this journey knowing that in my heart I felt unqualified and unequipped to teach your people. I thank you for the lessons and the inspirations of others that kept me writing. Every conversation I had with people who reached out to me showed me that people are yearning for knowledge and for truth. While your ways are a mystery, you have been good to me and you show me exactly who I am. I am grateful for the life you give me and for those who I affect. Allow your spirit to work in me and be infectious on everything that I touch. Let I decrease so that you can use me as an instrument for your people. I’m grateful for it all, Lord, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my mother Rochelle and father Bill. You’ve always believed in me. If I said today, Momma, I’m becoming an astronaut. You would root me on. I’m so grateful to have parents like you. God truly blessed me!

I would like to thank my sisters, my friend, and my brother. Tiffany, Veraunica, Tameya, and Yancy. I love you guys wholeheartedly. You all were there for me when I needed to talk throughout my entire life. You’ve seen it all and been through it all with me, and we remain loyal to each other. This is a success for you guys too!

I would like to give thanks to Exonam Gakpetor (aka Junior). During my toughest times, right at the brink of the inception this book, you were the only one at work standing by my side during a turning point in my life. To you, I will always be grateful. I would like to give a special thank you to the man who pushes me as an entrepreneur, believes in me and will not let me fail. Thank you, Justin, for who you are and what you brought in my life.

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who has been influential in this writing process, including Joshua Harwell, Darvin Moore, Bill Toombs, Angel Johnson, Sensory Johnson, Keanna Spencer, Dallas O’Bryant, Ola Summers, and Brandon Linton. You all are the real MVPs for taking the time and allowing me to discuss and interview you on these financial matters so that I can convey it across the world. Thank you for trusting me with your words.

Foreword

I bet when you were just a little boy or girl, you never imagined that life would present you with as many difficulties and obstacles that you have encountered up to this very moment. When we are young, our vivid imaginations are cultivated by our blissful ignorance to how the world really works. We are able to easily see exactly what it is that we want but have not yet been met with the challenges that we must face to get it. Unfortunately, for too many of us, once the cold world has done some of its dirty work on our young hearts, we become jaded by life’s disappointments, and that once bright future we imagined becomes dimmed with doubt. What once seemed like a realistic possibility ends with a feeling of a distant fantasy. If you have purchased this book and you are actually living out your dreams right now, I applaud you for not allowing the restrictions that others have probably attempted to place on you to prevent you from creating the life that aligns with your definition of happiness. Even if you do happen to be one of the brave souls that have managed to do the impossible, I’m sure that you can still relate to what many others feel, who are burdened by doubt about whether or not they can actually make the necessary changes in their mind, to begin the process of striving toward achieving something that is meaningful to them, and will provide enduring fulfillment in their lives.

Change must first begin in our minds. In order to free yourself from the suffocating feeling that comes from being somewhere in life that you don’t want to be, or not yet being on the path toward where you eventually want to go, a shift in mentality must happen. It’s not easy either, but at the same time, it’s not as hard as society may lead you on to believe. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we have all been conditioned in one way or another, to think in ways that have been influenced by the beliefs and values of someone else. These influencers could be our parents, teachers, religious leaders, friends, etc. There is no limit to the amount of people and personalities that could have impacted the way that you currently view the world around you. As you think about this, I also want you to take an honest look inside yourself and pay attention to how you feel when you think about the things that mean the most to you. For many of us, it is nearly impossible to think about these things, without also wondering how those mentioned above would feel. Will my friends tell me I’m crazy for wanting to become a best-selling author when I could barely get a C on my tenth grade English paper? Will my parents tell me that I need to be more realistic when they hear me talk about how I want to open up an auto shop catered toward women customers, which offers manicure and pedicures while they wait for their cars to be worked on? Or how about the self-doubt that often creeps into our minds when we have an idea to do something but are afraid that we might not be good enough to actually make it happen? When is the last time that you have reflected on one of your own brilliant ideas? Did you actually take action to make the mental shift that is required to carve out the lifestyle that you desire?

Once you have taken inventory on the influences that have the strongest impact on how you think, then you can begin the process of eliminating what is no longer useful to the direction you’re heading. Don’t be ashamed of this mental baggage that you discover you’ve been carrying, because we all have it. Some more than others, but having the courage to identify it is more than half battle. Now that you have taken the first step toward changing the way your thoughts are processed, you have given yourself the freedom to reshape your narrative, and begin the journey toward accomplishing what you once thought would forever be locked away as only an imagination. I bet if you took a survey of those around you and asked what is one thing they wish they could achieve in order to be happy right now; many of their answers would hint toward financial freedom. Whether they just want to better understand how to budget their money to make their day-to-day lives more manageable, or they want to eliminate their debts to start the process of purchasing their first home. A lot of people are somehow looking for ways to ensure that money isn’t a cause of their worries anymore; and unless you were raised in an environment that valued early childhood financial literacy education, then there is a high chance that we have some work to do. Welcome to the beginning of your FIIT journey.

This is where your dreams of creating a more desirable future for your finances come true. This is where you will be given the necessary tools to get rid of old habits that have left you stranded in a place of complacency, and desperately searching for answers to problems that have been holding you back in life. Let’s do this together, and prove ourselves wrong. We can live financially free! We will prove everyone wrong who told us that our dreams are too farfetched. This is what dreams are made of, and Talaya Scott will surely be someone you will look back and thank once you shift your perspective and make up your mind that you want to change old habits. I know I have thanked her countless times for being that initial spark that I needed to take control over the one thing that stood in my way of making all my dreams become a reality. My ability to be financially FIIT! I applaud you for being brave enough to let her do the same for you!

Jeremiah 29:11 says, For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future!

Part I

Aim High in the Air force

Chapter 1

My Life as I Knew It

It was June 3, 2001, and the families and friends of all my classmates at Rufus King High School were gathered around at the US Cellular Arena in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to watch us celebrate the most important milestone of our young lives, high school graduation! At the young age of seventeen leading up to this day, I found myself left with one of two options: either go to University of Wisconsin-Whitewater or join the United States Air Force. Eager to be on my own and to finally be responsible for my own actions, I based my decision on one simple qualification—money. The answer was fairly simple to me because I had none. After completing the FAFSA and my college application, I was awarded $3,000 in financial aid. What the heck could that pay for? Well, I’ll tell you, room and board. You see, I was raised middle class where our income was always too high to receive any real social benefits, but the funds available were always limited. Like most average middle class Americans, my family lived from month to month. As long as the bills were paid, we had food, and we can take a trip here or there, then life was good. Gaining a comprehension of how life works from a teenage perspective, I thought being a grownup was fairly easy. I can go to school and get a job or I can go to the military and get a job. Either way, I would be fine; I’m only taking care of me.

Assessing my situation I chose to join the military. As I conducted my research, Sergeant X convinced me that the military would pay for my education, and I would be considered an independent on my tax return. That’s all I needed to hear. Sign me up! I explained to him. After our meeting, between graduation and my departure date, in July 2001, I started to prepare myself for boot camp. I hung with all my friends as much as I could, and I cut my hair as short as Halley Berry rocked hers in the ’90s so that I wouldn’t have to worry about hair maintenance. I completed all my paperwork for the air force, took the ASVAB, and selected my military occupation. Once completed, I waited in anticipation to take my very first plane ride to Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas.

After a short wait, the day finally came for me to exit the city of Milwaukee for the next couple of years. At the appropriate hour, all the new trainees boarded a bus that would change our lives forever, and everyone’s face on the bus was unusually pale, and their facial expressions were filled with anxiety. We rode the bus to General Mitchell Field where we would catch a red-eye flight to San Antonio, Texas. This was my very first plane ride, so I was frightened beyond all belief. I walked down what seemed to be the longest ramp to a massive Boeing airplane. As I entered the plane, the flight attendant greeted me with a smile, but I was too scared to say anything to her. Everyone placed their carryon items in the overhead bins and began to fill the seats of the airplane, so I found my seat and proceeded to do the same.

Staring out the window, the sky was clear and the night was extremely dark. The words We have been cleared for departure rang in my ears from the flight attendant as they proceeded to convey the safety instructions of the plane. Panicking because I never been on a plane, I quickly grabbed the safety manual to follow along. I studied that manual thinking to myself, If anything happen, I am going to survive! While my anxiety grew a little higher, the plane taxied the runway at a snail pace. Soon after, the pilot must’ve gotten word from the tower that it was our turn to take off because that pilot took off at lightning speed, thirty miles per hour turned into ninety miles and ninety turned into who the heck knows, because next thing I knew, we were up in the air. Everyone’s back was reclined as we climbed the air like a roller coaster on an incline. All I can think repeatedly to myself was, Lord, don’t let this big plane fall back down. My young mind couldn’t comprehend another way to think it. We finally leveled out, but by this time, my heart had jumped out my chest and was rolling down the aisle. The flight attendant assured me everything was fine, but as we were talking, I continued to drill her with questions of every sound I heard coming from the plane. Later in life, I grew to understand the sounds of the wings as they adjust, the engine, the central air, and the wheels when they protrude for landing. But on my first ride, I was a basket case. After the plane reached maximum altitude, we finally leveled out and from then on, the five-hour flight was smooth sailing. I guess God didn’t want me to die of a heart attack at the age of seventeen, so he blessed the night with clear skies and no turbulent. After a long five-hour overnight plane ride, I started to see the layout of the plains that populated the city of San Antonio, Texas. Squares and rectangles from dry land became clearer, and I spotted the bull’s eye from target as we got closer to land. The pilot proceeded to lower the aircraft with ease, and his ability to keep an aircraft of that size stable upon descending to the ground was amazing. I was amazed, but more so relieved to have a smooth landing.

Upon the landing, we taxied to our gate and the plane finally came to a stop. All the trainees along with other random passengers proceeded to deplane the aircraft. We picked up our luggage from baggage claim and boarded a military bus. By this time, it had to be approximately 3:30 a.m., and we were all exhausted. We drove on a long road to get to our training base, and all of us were extremely tired and ready for rest. After an hour and a half, we finally arrived to our final destination and were relieved, but as soon as we stepped off the bus, we heard the disgracing words, "Get your asses in a single file line! Go! Go! Go!" They were running behind us like dogs chasing cats. Screaming at the top of their lungs were five military drill sergeants. One was yelling so hard, I swore he would burst a vein in his neck. Standing in pure confusion and disappointment, I hopped my butt in line exactly as they demanded, and I knew right then, this would be a ride from hell.

During the next several weeks of boot camp, the drill sergeants wore me out. I was awaken at 4:00 a.m. every morning to the annoying tunes of revelry. No matter how deep of a sleep you’re in, that sound will make you jump out of bed in pure confusion and irritation. We had all of three minutes to be dressed with our flash lights and canteens ready for the morning workout. In the beginning, they would run us until we vomited. They forced water down our throats for the sake of hydration, and if we passed out, we would get in trouble. It was extremely tough in the beginning, but it’s amazing how your body adapts to rigorous activity in a matter of days. After training, we would march for twenty minutes sluggishly back to our dorms in a marching formation. Upon arrival, we would have approximately ten minutes for all fifty woman trainees to shower and get dressed with our uniforms tucked and buttoned, our shoes tied and our book bags on and ready for the day. This was practically impossible; however, after arms, legs, boobs and butts were flying all over the place, somehow after the first week, we managed to have it down to a science. It’ amazing how I learned the science of teamwork through straight mayhem and foolishness!

Every day after working out, we showered and prepared for the day. We would have a variety of class sessions and life activity lessons that would prepare us for life as a member of the military. From military history to the presidents of the Unites States, we learned everything and anything in between. Discussions about wars like Pearl Harbor and the Vietnam War struck emotions as members of our class had family members who were involved. We learned the functions of all armed forces and how they come together as a united front in the time of war and crisis. We learned both good and bad things about the force as a whole, but ultimately, we learned that it is filled with passionate people who really love their country, but there I sat thinking my only reason for being there is because I had no money for school. Whelp! We all have our own motivations, right? So, after all the boring lectures and the creative ways I invented to keep myself awake after a ridiculous and excruciating work out, it would finally be time for lunch.

Now lunch was crazy good, but there was a catch. There’s always a catch. An individual from each unit called a runner would have to get permission from the drill sergeant before the entire flight of fifty women could eat. There was a specific phrase to this request, and it had to be stated clearly, loudly and without error. The first week was monstrous because we had the most passive and intimidated trainee who couldn’t seem to get the process down. So what did we do? We stood there with a sad faces looking like a bunch of hungry cats watching as all the other flights walked in to the dining hall. Our skin boiled as we waited in the sun, and it took all the self-control from all of us not to say or do anything. There honestly was no point to, or we would end up on our faces doing