The Breakfast Club - Stacey Tisdale & Lamine Zarrad

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

Financial expert Stace Tisdale and Lamine Zarrad join The Breakfast Club to talk about their new app Stellar, as well as tips to keep minorities finances protected See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...vacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this. It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete.
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Starting point is 00:01:06 Hello, my undeadly darlings. It's Teresa, your resident ghost host. And do I have a treat for you. Haunting is crawling out from the shadows, and it's going to be devilishly good. We've got chills, thrills, and stories that'll make you wish the lights stayed on. So join me, won't you? Let's dive into the eerie unknown together. Sleep tight, if you can.
Starting point is 00:01:34 Listen to Haunting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up? This is Ramses Jha.
Starting point is 00:02:13 And I go by the name Q. Ward. And we'd like you to join us each week for our show Civic Cipher. That's right. We discuss social issues, especially those that affect black and brown people, but in a way that informs and empowers all people. We discuss everything from prejudice to politics to police violence, and we try to give you the tools to create positive change in your home, workplace, and social circle. We're going to learn how to become better allies to each other.
Starting point is 00:02:35 So join us each Saturday for Civic Cipher on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Angela Yee. or wherever you get your podcast. Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Angela Yee, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club.
Starting point is 00:02:53 We got some special guests joining us today. We have Stacey Tisdale, and I'm going to mess up your name, your first name and last name. Lameen. Lameen Zarrard. You got it. I did mess it up. Welcome, guys.
Starting point is 00:03:03 Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be back. I got the Lameen part. I was more concerned about the Zarrard. You did up. Welcome, guys. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be back. I got the Lameen part. I was more concerned about the Zara. You did it. Well, I'm really excited to have you guys here today because we have partnered up on this app. And so, Lameen, you've been here before. I believe when you were here it was for Joust Bank. That's right.
Starting point is 00:03:20 So let's talk about your background. Thank you. Thank you. So StellarFi is my third startup, believe it or not. It's been kind of a crazy ride. I started out by building a neobank on cryptocurrency back in 2015 called Token. Then we built Joust, which is a bank for freelancers. That was acquired by a company called Zen Business. Let me hold something, man. Let me hold a couple of dollars, man. Come join us. Come join us. We'll give you more than dollars. We'll give you ownership, which is awesome. And now Stellify. So Stellify is kind of a distillation of all of my experiences. I'm an immigrant. I came to U.S. from a former USSR. My father's Tunisian. My mother's from Azerbaijan. And in any case, I've experienced
Starting point is 00:04:03 how difficult it is to navigate the financial services in this country. I mean, it really is. It's a complicated experience. It's convoluted. The cards are stacked against you. And so I made a lot of mistakes along the way and decided that I needed to learn more about finance. Started a business. Became a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch back at the height of the financial crisis.
Starting point is 00:04:22 Learned a lot then. Then a regulator with the U.S. Treasury and then said I want to distill this into experience all of those experiences into products because I want other people to use those products and so and started to build and now Stellar is you know think of it this way third time's a charm right it's going to be the best the best company we've built so far so So in 2015, you were working with crypto? That's right. Pretty early on. Wow. Did you invest in it early?
Starting point is 00:04:49 Yeah. I didn't have a lot of money to invest, but I invested a little bit. Okay. So you did pretty well then. Did all right. Okay. Question, just a side, but have you been experiencing any prejudice because you're from the USSR? Or former USSR?
Starting point is 00:05:01 I have in the past, yeah. So when I came to the US, I joined the Marines. And it's interesting. Back then, in the 90s even, you had a lot of folks who came out of the Cold War. And so there was a lot of jokes made and a lot of picking in the Marine Corps. But, you know, you just kind of get through it. Yeah, because I came back from France. I was in Cairns, and they were like, if you're from Russia, they're not rocking with you over there at all.
Starting point is 00:05:25 Yeah. That's true. They won't even allow you to buy Chanel with certain people. If you go in a Chanel store... Stacey said, they were upset about that, but they were saying even certain things, they won't allow you to purchase things if you're from Russia.
Starting point is 00:05:42 Stacey, there's a lot going on right now and I want to know how these things affect the economy. Roe versus Wade was just overturned. There's a lot of turmoil. So how does that affect the economy and why is it important for us to be empowered financially? I think this is going to go down as one of the biggest economic moments in black financial history, right up there with redlining, right up there with predatory lending. And it's really not a mystery. The number one reason that women don't want to have children and want abortions is financial. They're simply afraid that they don't have enough money to take care of their babies. And their fears are valid. 60% of all of the households in the United States,
Starting point is 00:06:27 black women, are headed by women. So in addition to carrying that burden, they're going to have the inevitable career disruptions that come with motherhood. Those career gaps are going to mean that they don't have as much time to build up money for retirement. They don't have as much money to build up for social security benefits. And, you know, you live in a country where poverty stricken elderly are already the majority black women. Then you have education gaps. They're going to have to take times out of their education, which is going to have an impact on their entire life trajectory. One thing that we're also not talking about a lot is this whole overturning of this decision is going to make the wealth gap between black women and white women even bigger.
Starting point is 00:07:11 Really? You saw companies, I think Disney made an American Express among the companies that have said that we're going to give a benefit to our employees if you need to cross the state border to get an abortion. And imagine you have to tell your job that because that's something that is so personal. It is. And now I have to go and like go to, you know, go to human resources and say, yeah. And who are those workers? They're largely white collar, white women who are going to get those jobs. A third of low income workers, people who make less than that, don't even get paid time off. So the
Starting point is 00:07:45 bottom line is black women are simply not going to have the time and the money to cross state borders. And, you know, six months after someone has a baby that, you know, an unwanted pregnancy, they lose full-time employment. There's all sorts of things. We talked, again, something else. When a woman puts that she has a child on a resume, they are twice as likely not to get called back. So we see all these issues for women, but a lot of people aren't talking about how this is impacting men. And men who... How many hours did? Well, the obvious. She said sons, but yes.
Starting point is 00:08:23 Men, the fathers. Men who support women who have abortions, who their partner have abortions, they're four times more likely to go to college and to earn more. And the top reason that men support women in having abortions is because they want to be able to take care of the families that they already have. And when you put all this together, and the reason why this is going to be one of the biggest turning points in the economic history of blacks is suffer the children. Children who grow up in these outcomes, they're not going to have as much access to education. Their life trajectories are going to be changed. There's food insecurity. This is all research. This is fact. I'm a journalist. I'm not going to sit here and tell you my opinion about it, but this is just fact. So again, we have this whole cycle. It's just heartbreaking. Generations of generations.
Starting point is 00:09:15 When you look at all the gains the blacks have made post-COVID in the housing market, being first-time new investors, you see this is just another hit that's going to slam the economy and really affect future generations. But there's one thing that we did see in all of us over the past few years. The system is just rigged against us, the traditional financial system is. So we stepped out. We embraced the digital economy. We started using technology to invest. We started doing all these things. Black millennials, fastest new group of home buyers after 2020. Now it's even more important that we do that again, empower ourselves again, and especially when it comes to building
Starting point is 00:09:56 credit, because it's going to be harder than ever to qualify. And that's why this whole Stellar, that's one of the things this whole StellarFi initiative is about. I was going to ask you, you know, with credit, you know, credit is a game of numbers and right decisions, right? Not necessarily how well you pay your bills, but as far as how much credit. So with this app, how do you break explaining that to the consumer? For sure. For sure. Yeah. And credit score is pretty complex, right? It's kind of a black box initially created by FICO. Now there's Advantage, you know, right it's kind of a black box initially created by fico now there's advantage you know the bureau's going to have their hands in it and what they look at is a bunch of different things some of that stuff is like how many credit cards do you have compared
Starting point is 00:10:33 to how many loans you have right so it's called credit mix because people feel like if they pay off all their loans their credit will be through the roof but that's not necessarily that's not the case at all no no what they i mean look at high level, they want you to have a bunch of stuff on your profile. And they want you to prove that you're paying on time, right? So, like, that's a simple rule of thumb. It's more complicated than that. And the way we build a product, we said, look, we don't want to give you another line of credit or debt, for example, on your profile. We don't want to burden you.
Starting point is 00:11:00 We want to inject ourselves into what you already do. Everyone pays rent. Everyone pays utilities. Stuff that you have to. Netflix. Netflix, Hulu, whatever, right? And you already do it. You already do it, but you're getting no credit for it. And initially, when we were thinking about the app, we thought, let's just report that stuff to the bureaus. And what we learned is the bureaus don't want that. They don't accept that information because that's not credit. They're saying that we want a real credit transaction in our system. We want to see that your customer is actually a credit-worthy person,
Starting point is 00:11:32 meaning that they borrowed money and they're paying that money back. And if you're saying they're just paying for Netflix or for their gym membership, they don't want to see that in the system. It clutters the system. So we said we have a way around it. And what we build is this. We build a bill pay platform that pays your bills on your behalf. So in other words, we're using our money to pay your bills.
Starting point is 00:11:51 And then we pull the money from your bank account on the back end. So we're creating a credit transaction. We're quite literally advancing you the cash. And then we pull the money back. And because we created a real credit transaction, now we can pay for your Netflix. We can pay for your gym. We can pay for your rent, whatever it is, right is right with really agnostic what's on the other end of that transaction and we can report it legitimately to any Bureau so
Starting point is 00:12:12 wait a minute so you gonna pay my stuff before I do it then yeah you're gonna hope that I have enough money in account to get your money back we're not gonna hope we're gonna we're gonna look into your bank account the way the app works just like any other app I don't know if you use Robin Hood or really like even neobanking apps you link your account to it right your bank account. The way the app works, just like any other app. I don't know if you use Robinhood or really like even neobanking apps. You link your account to it, right, your bank account. It takes two seconds. You link it. It gives us visibility into what's going on in your bank account, even historical data.
Starting point is 00:12:34 So we don't have to hope we make informed decisions. Now, for somebody like me who I'm very old school with it, right, meaning I like to hold my money. I'd rather pay my bills myself and take it out of account. He's really old school. He dies his beard You know you can't tell how old school, but he's very old Continue that's old school Interrupted by Robo cop over here when it comes to it. I was that's old school. That's old school But I was saying you you know, for somebody like that, so how do you protect it to make sure that the right people can see the account
Starting point is 00:13:09 and not hackers or anybody else that can get through the account to make sure? Yeah, for sure. I mean, we have an onboarding experience, right, just like a banking experience. When you sign up, we validate your identity. We work with third-party partners that have access to government databases. And so it's pretty straightforward. We use security, like modern-level banking security. And when you sign up, you give us your name, your address, your password, or you create a password, your social security number. We then run the check on your name to make sure you are who you are. Because fundamentally, it's very difficult to defraud our system, but you could potentially, if you were to lie to us,
Starting point is 00:13:48 you can access someone else's credit information. We don't want to do that, right? We don't want to be the company that allows Angela accessing your credit report. And so we want to make sure that Angela is who she says she is before she accesses it. I already have access to his credit report. Oh, I don't doubt it. I was going to ask you this, too. You know, a lot of times people have accounts that they don't know about.
Starting point is 00:14:08 Well, that app happened. For instance, I had a PC Richards, right? Yeah. And I haven't used it in 10 years because I just have it. But so they closed the account. But when they closed the account, my credit shot down because now it's a closed account. But if I would have known, I would have just bought something for $100 to keep that account open. That's credit score 101. Right. So will you guys have that as well? We do. We do. So basically
Starting point is 00:14:29 when you access the app, you can see all of your credit information, like your entire report. You can then see that, hey, I have this old account. For example, I discovered that I had an old account that I haven't used in 10 years. And they've been sending me letters to a wrong address saying they're going to shut it down. and now I can use that account so they don't shut it down so I still have that access to that credit and it's you know positively impacts my score so absolutely we have a ton of tools on a platform there's a monthly membership fee that gives you access to simulators calculators everything you need to be well educated about your credit and make
Starting point is 00:15:02 decisions that are you know well informed decisions so if you don't want to go borrow money for a house for example I want to buy a car want to get a credit card our platform is designed to give you everything you need to make a decision right there without really thinking about it just quick analysis quick snapshot and then you can make a quick decision where does that your where did your these payments get reported to because I know there are three main places that they report, three main agencies. Yeah, so today we report to Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. These are the three main bureaus, right, that everyone knows about.
Starting point is 00:15:36 What people don't talk about, there's another fourth bureau. We're going to be reporting to that fourth bureau as well. It's called Innovis. And a lot of the credit card uh you know companies actually check your report from innovis instead of experian or others right and so when when other companies for example report your information they usually report to one or two bureaus because you have to pay money to report we report to all three now and we're going to be reporting to four so think of it this way it's a complete 360 impact on your credit so like when you use our product if you want to go borrow money tomorrow from any lender out there
Starting point is 00:16:08 it will have a massive impact on you right the lender will be able to see that you have all those payments reported your credit score is gonna improve across board through every single model now you said there's a monthly fee so what is that membership fee so we have three right we have three plans because we have so many features we had to figure out how do we separate those features, how to separate those features and offer them in a, you know, fair way to folks. And so we have the lowest entry plan is $499 a month. $499 a month gives you access to $500 in spending. So you can add $500 in bills. That's pretty cool. I mean, think of there. There's no interest. There are no other fees.
Starting point is 00:16:45 And you have access to a bunch of tools to manage your credit. For $9.99, you can run up to $25,000 in bills. I mean, if you were to compare it to a credit card, I mean, how many credit cards? $4.99. $4.99. Okay. That's right. I said $4.99.
Starting point is 00:17:02 Good ones. $4.99. $4.99. $4.99. Yeah, yeah. You know $4.99. Good ones are $99. $4.99. $4.99. Yeah, yeah. You know what? That's a good call out, man. I said $4.99.
Starting point is 00:17:10 I'm like, what the? I need to be conscious of these things. That's true. $4.99 and then $9.99. There you go. And so for $9.99, you have access to $25,000 in spending. That is revolutionary. There's not a credit product out there.
Starting point is 00:17:26 You can pay your mortgage. I mean, you can pay everything, right? How many people have more than $25,000 a month in bills? These guys. And guess what? We have a plan for you, too, though. For $19.99, so $19.99. Unlimited.
Starting point is 00:17:42 Unlimited. So if you have $100,000 in bills monthly, you can add it. It's like a black card. It is like a black card. Rich people got $100,000 in bills. Jesus. Rich people. Yeah, that's so important because 35% of your credit score is on-time bill payment. Because I know some people are like, well, why don't I just pay it myself? 35%, the biggest component of your credit score is on-time bill payment. And all of those bills, what Amin was talking about, don't count. Now that StellarFi is paying them on your behalf,
Starting point is 00:18:16 it almost looks like you're paying off a credit card transaction. So you get credit for those. And there's the other apps out there. None of them give you that credit building apps. None of that give you that credit building apps. None of that give you on that unlimited access. And another thing that really distinguishes Stellar 5 from the others is as Angela and I were, you know, part of this journey and talking to people about through the years with Wealth Wednesdays about what they need. Nobody can do this stuff alone. It's really hard to improve your finances alone. So the first thing we did is we
Starting point is 00:18:45 contacted the national foundation for credit counseling that's the big think tank non-profit and they are going to offer free one-on-one credit coaching to stellar phi users and that really distinguishes us so you can just go to nfcc.org forward slash stellar and you get a free real person, one-on-one credit coaching. This is about a financial empowerment platform. You touched on earlier the Roe v. Wade, you know, and how women, it's more important than ever for women and men to rebuild their credit. But it's, you know, all these marginalized groups between Latinos, Hispanics, communities of color. We really lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year because we get charged higher interest rates and it's harder for us to do things like mortgages. A lot of our friends in the pride community, this is really significant. I was
Starting point is 00:19:37 sharing this with Lomine. When transgenders have the operation. They lose their credit history. It's like starting from scratch. A lot of people don't know that. It's a new identity. You lose your past credit history. So Stellar's for everybody. I do not know that. You got to say that faster next time.
Starting point is 00:20:01 You said when transgenders have the surgery, they lose their credit history. That's right. You got to come with it. Because it's like, whoa, what are you about to say? You lose your credit history. I've never heard that before. I didn. That's right. You gotta come with it. You've lost your credit history. I've never heard that before. It's financially devastating. They don't keep their name?
Starting point is 00:20:12 When you make that name change and you make that gender identity. You don't keep the same social security though? They lose their credit history. It's a big issue. You have the three major credit bureaus saying that they're trying to work on it and find other ways to get their identities. It's becoming a big legislative issue. Does it happen if anyone changes their name?
Starting point is 00:20:34 It's not just a name change. It's your gender. Oh, wow. It's mostly the gender. I did not know that. So if you have bad credit, it could actually work in your favor. Well, no credit is worse than bad credit. No credit history.
Starting point is 00:20:45 So you tell me if I transition. i transition i know we talk about this what me transitioning yeah i know yes if i transition you guys have talked about my credit history yes and what so the three major credit bureaus have tried to make that better so now you'll have to go through um you know mountain of paperwork cumbersome process that most people won't go through, but it's going to get some legislative attention. And that's just another group. We have to empower ourselves and build credit. That's what StellarFi is all about.
Starting point is 00:21:15 It's for everybody, but these marginalized groups is really... I didn't know you get a new Social Security. No, you don't get a new Social Security. If I got a 700 credit score, I lose it? You don't exist anymore, according to the credit bureau. Wow. Because you changed your gender. But you have the same social, though.
Starting point is 00:21:34 Because credit is social, though, isn't it? Credit is much more than just Social Security number, right? Social Security number is just one little tiny attribute. And the way credit bureaus are looking at you holistically, they're seeing all kinds of different things. And when you, like, jumble it up by changing stuff, including your gender, it just resets. It's easier for them to be like,
Starting point is 00:21:52 well, this is a whole new identity here. I never knew that. Wow. What do you think about it? I mean, if your credit's messed up, that's smart. No, it's not because no credit is worse than bad credit. Oh, so you have no credit. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:06 It's like you're starting over. Interesting. No one's going to lend you money, right? Because they don't know. Yeah. You got to rebuild everything and you have no history. Now, let me. So this is basically like, OK, so if you had to describe what Stellar Fi is, is it like
Starting point is 00:22:20 a loan that you're paying? Like, how does that work? Because you're giving the money that's paying it and then you're taking the money from the bank account so it looks like you're making payments on that's right okay it's not alone right so I want to be very clear about that because it's different it's important to there are credit builders out there that give you a loan and you sometimes like it's secured loan you put some money down because they don't trust you and so and then they create this fake loan on the back end. We don't do that, right? So what we do is we, you know, when we make those advances,
Starting point is 00:22:49 when we pay your bills, we then report that as a line of credit, basically. It's like, it looks like a credit card on your credit report, which is good because you mentioned that, that it's good to have access to a bigger line of credit because it reflects well on your profile. Meaning that as a mortgage lender, when I look at your profile and I see that you have a bunch of credit available to you that you don't use, you look responsible to me. You look like a good borrower to me. And that's what we do, right? So if you add all of your bills, let's say an average American has 4,000 monthly bills, right? They don't get reported to anything, but you add it to Stellar.
Starting point is 00:23:27 You now have this $4,000, you know, available credit to you monthly that we pay off every month, right? Cause you pay those bills. And so it's always available and it reflects really well in your profile. Can you, will you guys ever report to the credit bureaus negatively? Like if somebody doesn't do what they're supposed to do? Yeah, that's a good question. And the short answer is it can happen, but the way we design a system is to prevent that
Starting point is 00:23:48 specifically. You ask like, hey, how do you trust me to pay you back, right? What we do is we validate your balance. And if you have sufficient balance, we're remitted payment. And then we pull the money from your account. So we kind of eliminate the possibility of you not paying. It can happen. If you have no balance and if you don't have a valid balance and then you can't pay it then that would happen so if you have no money right and we've had customers that signed up they have zero money in the bank calendar like hey I have a you know have a run coming up can you pay it for me we unfortunately can't we can't pay you rent yeah so I you know this is this is not a value add yet but what we You're coming up. Can you pay? I'll get back to you. You're on your own, brother.
Starting point is 00:24:29 Yeah, so, you know, this is not a value add yet. But what we're working on is basically to do that, right, to help folks who, you know, live paycheck to paycheck. Most Americans do, even high earners. And we say that we know that you can get paid on the 15th. Your rent is due on the 1st. We'll pay it, and then we'll collect it on the 15th. Got you. So that's coming up.
Starting point is 00:24:45 That's not available to users yet. What is the five-day credit challenge that you guys are doing? We're going to be launching over the next couple of days a five-day credit challenge to help people take control and understand their credit better. The first day, we're going to have you examine and do a little search on what we were talking about, credit biases, how different groups are discriminated against. The second day, we're going to talk about goals. And Stellar is really a goal-oriented approach to credit building. And I'll explain what that means. Have you ever looked on your credit card statement and it says, oh, I have a 720 credit score. And then you go to a mortgage lender and the guy walks out and he's like, I'm sorry, ma'am, you have a 600 credit score.
Starting point is 00:25:28 And you're like, oh, I just looked. It said I had 700. That's because people don't realize that these lenders usually use FICO scores, but there are 16 different versions of the FICO scores. So an auto lender is not going to be looking at the same version that a mortgage lender is going to be looking at. So we, Stellar is also a financial education tool. So people need to know that going in. So on day two of the challenge, we're going to help you identify what your goals are. Day three is a little credit score 101. Day four, we have you link to actually link to Stellar and link your bills to Stellar, which, by the way, just takes a couple of minutes.
Starting point is 00:26:09 And on day five, we want everybody out there to set up for that free credit coaching session. I'll just try to get the app. How can I get the app? Yeah, sure. Go to StellarFi.com. StellarFi.com. StellarFi.com. That's like Stellar Finance?
Starting point is 00:26:23 Yeah, it's short for Stellar Finance. And then go to Try It For Free and then sign up. I'm signing my mom up. I want to ask you. What if I wanted to sign my mom up but use my bank account? So technically you shouldn't do that. That seems like it's against the law.
Starting point is 00:26:40 But it's possible. If you want to link your bank account to your mom. What if you want to pay your family member's bills? Or put the money in her account. You could do that. The best thing to do is to put the money in her account and let her have her account. So what we do is we validate.
Starting point is 00:26:55 We check in the name on the account, but we do make exceptions because sometimes family members, right? So sometimes it's a spouse and you're using your spouse's account. Sometimes it's your child and so forth. So we do make exceptions. But it adds a little bit of friction because we don't know if you stole someone's account, right, if your name doesn't match.
Starting point is 00:27:13 So we want to make sure that it all aligns. I was going to ask you, you know, why is it – and sometimes, like if you try to get, let's say, a smaller credit card, because I know this happens to a lot of people. They try to get a smaller credit card, it's a PC Richardson Sun or Best Buy or Macy's and it's very dangerous to get there but then let's say you try to get a car or a mortgage and you get that why is that and why interest rates so damn high on those credit cards like if you don't read the fine print yeah like 28% is ridiculous I can I can answer that. Go.
Starting point is 00:27:45 Yeah, for sure. So most of those credit cards, they're unsecured, right? And so when a lender makes a decision and they're like, man, I don't know you, you don't have a good credit, so here's $100 in the spending limit and you're going to pay 33% interest because we don't know you and we don't want to lose $100. When you borrow money for a car, there's a collateral. And if you don't pay that car, they're going to come collect it.
Starting point is 00:28:06 And so this is why it's easier to sometimes borrow money for something that's tangible that can be then repossessed. That's why a lot of people go that route sometimes. And it's a lot more difficult to borrow money just on a credit card. And if you do, if you're like an entry-level borrower, either you're young or you have a bat credit or whatever it is, good luck getting a decent card. You're going to be paying crazy interest. It's difficult. Yeah. I don't know if that's part of the app, too, but you should have some type of thing for fine print that teaches people what it is and what it really means.
Starting point is 00:28:37 I bought a piano for my daughter when I was like 22, 23. It was a Steinway and Son, and I really couldn't afford it at that age, but I bought it. And I paid a monthly because I could pay the monthly. And 10 years later, I just happened to look because it just kept coming out the account.
Starting point is 00:28:54 And I looked and I was like, how much did I actually pay on this piano? And I only paid like $5,000 after 10 years on this piano because the interest rates were so high. And the way that they did it was they took their interest rates the first 10 years. Right, like a mortgage.
Starting point is 00:29:08 But it was a piano and I've been paying it for 10 years but I didn't know and I didn't read the small print because nobody taught me about credit. So I actually had to pay it off to make sure because I paid them so much money for a goddamn piano that my daughter doesn't play no more. But that's another point. But that's what you should do. You should really
Starting point is 00:29:24 I don't know if that's part of the app where it shows people about those interest rates and how that works there's a big educational component also makes it different than you know any other credit building apps out there yeah now what if um you have a credit card right and obviously you don't have to pay it off every month so do you let stellar know this is the amount that i want to pay before it gets remitted, or is it automatic? So when you link a card, for example, to Stellar to pay it off, it's automatic. So you designate what you want to pay, and we pay it on your behalf. It's just like bill pay, right?
Starting point is 00:29:55 All we are is bill pay that builds your credit. But every month you can change that. Like maybe you want to overpay what the minimum payment is, obviously. Absolutely. You can make double payments, whatever you want. But you just said that sums it up. Your bill paid, that builds your credit. That's right.
Starting point is 00:30:11 That's a great selling point. Thank you. Give them the website again where people can download it and definitely try this out. Yeah, it's StellarFI.com. StellarFinance.com. And we'll be doing the challenge on Angela's Facebook page in a couple days, and she'll let you know when that's going to start. But we want everybody to participate in that.
Starting point is 00:30:28 This is really a movement to empower ourselves with credit because nobody's helping us. I'm really excited about it, and I just want to say for people who are like, I'm just not going to pay my bills because I feel like I'm swamped and it's overwhelming, and what difference does it make anyway? Who does that? Who says that? I'm just not going to pay my bills. I'm not going to say who it is, but somebody did recently tell me that.
Starting point is 00:30:47 And they're not going to pay their bills? Yeah, they're like, well, they have credit cards that are way overdue that they're paying the minimum on and it keeps on getting more and more interest and they're not concerned with paying it off. They're like, it's just too much. Like I owe over $100,000 and I just can't. Yeah, they get overwhelmed. Yeah, and it's overwhelming.
Starting point is 00:31:04 And so I'll just pay this $50 a month and I'm not concerned about paying it off. But at some point, somebody is going to have to pay it. So if something happens that gets passed on, it's not like it just goes away ever. And I do feel like the best thing to do is such a great relief to improve your credit, to see those changes being made, to pay down those bills.
Starting point is 00:31:24 And so that's why I was really excited to be working with Lamine, who has those changes being made, to pay down those bills. And so that's why I was really excited to be working with Lamine, who has a proven track record, and Stacey, who is already my partner with Wealth Wednesdays, and bringing something like this to help people. Because I do feel like a lot of stress comes from finances if you're not doing it right. But a lot of relief and excitement can come when things start getting more positive. Those people who are experiencing that severe trauma, like what you just said, I have $100,000 in debt and I don't know what to do. This is one of the reasons we partnered with the National Foundation of Credit Counseling. You'll get a coach, you'll get a plan, and it's a live person and that nfc.org forward slash stellar. And that's really something we're excited about.
Starting point is 00:32:05 Well, thank you guys for joining us and definitely hit up the website and download the app right now and uh good luck with everything appreciate you guys thank you big shout out to lamine watching them build this has been incredible some of the engineers were in the ukraine pulled it off launched and uh it's been fun it's been a journey thank you lamina and angela all right well it's lamine zarad stacy tisdale it's the breakfast club good morning Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once
Starting point is 00:33:19 we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Had enough of this country? Ever dreamt about starting your own? I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this. It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Listen to Escape from Zakistan. We need help!
Starting point is 00:33:50 That's Escape from Z-A-Q-istan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, my undeadly darlings. It's Teresa, your resident ghost host. And do I have a treat for you. Haunting is crawling out from the shadows, and it's going to be devilishly good. We've got chills, thrills, and stories that'll make you wish the lights stayed on.
Starting point is 00:34:19 So join me, won't you? Let's dive into the eerie unknown together. Sleep tight, if you can. Listen to Haunting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up? This is Ramses Jha. And I go by the name Q Ward. And we'd like
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Starting point is 00:34:53 We're going to learn how to become better allies to each other. So join us each Saturday for Civic Cipher on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist or wherever you get your podcasts. into a mafia state.

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