This guest post is by Gail Cunningham, Vice President of Membership and Public Relations, National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC). Experian’s recent State of Credit Study revealed that The Greatest Generation has something else to brag about: responsibly managing credit. And that’s no small achievement considering that some of these folks have 50 or more years of credit history under their belt. That’s a lot of on-time payments. If you fall into the 65+ age bracket, congratulations! You’ve done a lot right. Now let’s keep a good thing going. Here are some tips to help you stay financially healthy moving forward: Make financial decisions with your head, not your heart. This is difficult to do when a family member reaches out to you for financial help. But remember, you won’t be in a position to help anyone if you can’t support yourself, so think of ways that you can assist family members without putting your own finances in jeopardy. Stay alert about protecting your identity and personal financial information. Seniors are prime targets for scam artists. Never provide personal information over the phone unless you initiated the call, and if you receive an email requesting financial information, don’t respond. Phony emails can look very real, so play it safe by picking up the phone and calling the sender. Make your wallet a little lighter by removing your Social Security and Medicare cards, as these can be the gateway to your personal information if they fall into the hands of a criminal. Get your financial ducks in a row. Know your retirement options in order to maximize your benefits. The decisions you make when leaving your job, beginning Social Security or signing up for Medicare can have long-term implications. Also, review documents such as your will and medical power of attorney to make sure they are up-to-date. Getting advice from a professional in advance of major decisions will pay for itself many times over. Take care of yourself. Medical costs can increase substantially for people as they age, and there are currently many unknowns around healthcare. Therefore, it’s important to do what you can to avoid any unnecessary medical issues. Embrace a healthy lifestyle of eating right and exercising to help keep medical and prescription costs down. Don’t be shy about taking advantage of age-based discounts. There are many perks for people in their 60’s, 70’s and beyond. Look for travel discounts, cheaper cell phone plans, and special discounts at restaurants and movies to make date night even better! The bottom line is to stay the course and not abandon the financial values that have served you well and gotten you where you are today.
This guest post is from Ted Jenkin, CFP®. Ted is co-CEO of oXYGen Financial and is a top ranked personal finance blogger (www.yoursmartmoneymoves.com). He is a regular contributor to Investment News, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. It’s official. For years and years everyone has labeled my generation (Generation X) the slacker generation. We were the ones that really started on the video game revolution with games like Pong and Atari and now we have relegated ourselves to worst in class when it comes to overall debt. Although the average balance on credit cards is neck and neck with baby boomers at $5,343 per card and we don’t carry quite as many credit cards as baby boomers, the average debt for a Gen X’er has soared to over $30,000. The Experian study showed that nationally, the average debt in the United States is $27,887 and the average bankcard balance is $4,501. So, why is such a successful generation getting so deep in debt? What actions can you take today to start improving your situation? There is a reason why Gen X’ers and Millennials are using their credit cards more and falling behind on their payments. I call it lifestyle envy. While social media has become really effective in bringing the world closer together, it has also created a set of unrealistic expectations for my generation based upon last night’s Facebook post. Doesn’t it make you angry that your childhood friends are all taking vacations to paradise whereas you suffer from having to take staycations? Aren’t you frustrated that your co-workers all seem to be driving a Porsche or an Audi and you are stuck rolling around in a 2001 Honda? How is it possible that your neighbor’s kids are having birthday parties like they are rock stars while you are still playing pin the tail on the donkey in your basement? You should learn by reading the study from Experian that although it appears they are living life like they are on an episode of Entourage, the truth of it is that their finances are a sinking ship weighted by an anchor of credit card. All the pictures on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest might give you the appearance they are doing well. But that is all smoke and mirrors as these images produce a level of irrationality in our minds when it comes to how we spend our money. The pictures tell us, “If they can do it, surely I can do it as well!” Notice there are no facts about income or net worth on Facebook. Notice that there are no budget numbers shown on Facebook. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, the posts we see night in and night out psychologically work on our brains to make us think we should be spending more than we need to with our credit cards. So, how can you fix your situation? Use these five rules as you manage your personal finances: Adopt The Pay Yourself First Rule – I’ve been doing this personally for 22 years in my own financial plan, and I recommend to save a minimum of 10% off the top before you plan out the rest of your budget. If you can get to 20% to 30% even better, but start at a minimum of 10%. If you try to save money after you spend, it’s likely you’ll have nothing because everyone is after your money. When It Comes To Raises At Work, Use the 1/3rd Rule – Hopefully, if you are between the ages 34 to 48, your income will continue to go up in your peak earning years. It is easy to expand your lifestyle as you make more money. Consider saving just 1/3rd of every new pay raise you get at work whether it be in your 401(k) or personal savings. 1/3rd will go to tax and keep a 1/3rd for fun. Get Down To Two Credit Cards You Use – Once you begin to pay off debt don’t cancel your existing credit cards, just stop using them. I’ve maintained a high credit score over the years by carrying several cards, but being disciplined to using two cards and paying them off all the time. Do you really need five more store cards? Use The Acid Test For Purchases – Before you make a purchase, ask yourself whether or not you need it, you want it, and you can truly afford it? Since the internet has created a wave of ease for our spending compulsions, before you click purchase give it 48 hours and then come back to the website to see if you still really want the merchandise. If You Are Struggling, Go To A Forced Budgeting Site – In the good old days, people used envelopes to sort out the cash from their weekly paychecks for paying bills. Today, there are websites such as www.mvelopes.com that can help you do this electronically as a family. This can be an especially powerful tool for those that lack self-discipline. Remember that sound from Pac-Man when you got caught by one of the Ghosts? If you don’t get your spending under control, that is what your personal financial picture will look and sound like as well. Use these smart money moves to get your debt under control and make your cash work toward making work optional one day soon!
Underscoring Experian’s goal to help consumers and be an advocate for credit education, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) awarded Victor Nichols, CEO of Experian North America, its “Making the Difference” award from their Annual Leaders Conference in Denver. This prestigious award is presented to organizations that have made significant contributions to assisting consumers with financial literacy, awareness and education, furthering the NFCC’s mission, visions and programs through a national presence. To learn more about Experian’s work with the NFCC, check out: Experian honored by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling for its Commitment to Financial Literacy; CEO earns NFCC’s “Making the Difference” Award Experian Provides 80,000 free memberships to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling®, the nation’s largest financial counseling organization
Today, we stand at the forefront of a digital revolution that is reshaping the financial services industry. And, against this backdrop, financial institutions are at vastly different levels of maturity; the world’s biggest banks are managing large-scale infrastructure migrations and making significant investments in AI while regional banks and credit unions are putting plans in place for modernization strategies, and fintechs are purpose-built and cloud native. To explore this more, I recently had the privilege of attending the annual Reuters NEXT live event in New York City. The event gathers globally recognized leaders across business, finance, technology, and government to tackle some of today’s most pressing issues. On the World Stage, I joined Del Irani, a talented anchor and broadcast journalist, to discuss the future of lending and the pivotal role of data and AI in building a more inclusive financial system. Improving financial access Our discussion highlighted the lack of access to traditional financial systems, and the impact it has on nearly 100 million people in North America alone. Globally, the problem affects over one billion people. These people, who are credit invisible, unscoreable, or have subprime credit scores, are unable to secure everyday financial products that many of us take for granted. What many don’t realize is, this is not a fringe subset of the population. Most of us, myself included, know someone who has faced the challenges of financial exclusion. Everyday Americans, including young people who are just starting out, new immigrants and people from diverse communities, often lack access to mainstream financial products. We discussed how traditional lending has a limited view of a consumer. Like looking through a keyhole, the lender’s understanding of the person in view is often incomplete and obstructed. However, with expanded data, technology, and advanced analytics, there is an opportunity to better understand the whole person, and as a result have a more inclusive financial system. At Experian, we have a unique ability to connect the power of traditional credit with alternative data, bringing a more holistic understanding of consumers and their behaviors. We are dedicated to leveraging our rich history in data and our expertise in technology to create the future of credit and ultimately bring financial power to everyone. The future of lending After spending two days with over 700 industry leaders from around the world, one thing is abundantly clear: much like the early days of the internet, today, we are at the cutting-edge of a technical revolution. Reflecting on my time at Reuters NEXT, I am particularly excited by the collective commitment to drive innovative, and smarter ways of working. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of how data and technology can transform financial services, and Experian is positioned to play a significant role. As we look to the future, I am excited about the ways we will create new opportunities for businesses and consumers alike.
The advertising ecosystem has seen significant transformation over the past few years, with increased privacy regulation, changes in available signals, and the rise of channels like connected TV and retail media. These changes are impacting the way that consumers interact with brands and how brands understand and continue to deliver relevant messages to consumers with precision. Experian has been helping marketers navigate these changes, and as a result, our marketing data and identity solutions underpin much of today’s advertising industry. We’re committed to empowering marketers and agencies to understand and reach their target audiences, across all channels. Today, we are excited to announce our acquisition of Audigent—a leading data and activation platform in the advertising industry. With Audigent’s combination of first-party publisher data, inventory and deep supply-side distribution relationships, publishers, big and small, can empower marketers to better understand their customers, expand the reach of their target audiences and activate those audiences across the most impactful inventory. I am excited to bring together Audigent’s supply-side network as a natural extension to our existing demand-side capabilities. Audigent’s ability to combine inventory with targeted audiences using first-party, third-party and contextual signals provides the best of all worlds, allowing marketers to deliver campaigns centered on consumer choices, preferences, and behaviors. The addition of Audigent further strengthens our strategy to be the premier independent provider of marketing data and identity, ultimately creating more relevant experiences for consumers. To learn more about Experian and Audigent, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/ and https://audigent.com/.
When it comes to cybercriminals and threat vectors, we need to expect the unexpected. Experian’s 12th annual Data Breach Industry Forecast highlights several potential trends for 2025, with AI playing a central role. This year has already seen more data breaches and impacted consumers than 2023, indicating that global data breaches are not slowing down. Some things to watch out for next year includes the potential for more internal fraud. As companies train employees on AI, there is a growing risk that some will misuse their knowledge for internal theft and sourcing sensitive information. Another trend may be cyberattackers targeting large data centers, with the growth of generative AI introducing power as a new attack vector. It’s reported that a single ChatGPT query uses significantly more electricity than a standard Google search, making data centers and cloud infrastructure vulnerable, especially in countries with varying security standards. We expect AI-related attacks to dominate the headlines next year and investments in cybersecurity will increase to tackle this emerging threat, as hackers leverage AI for phishing, password cracking, malware, and deepfakes. Jim Steven, Head of Crisis and Data Response Services at Experian Global Data Breach Resolution in the UK, anticipates that global data breaches will persist at their current rate next year. He notes that ransomware attacks are likely to become even more sophisticated with the integration of AI. Additionally, Steven predicts that threat actors will escalate their tactics to achieve greater rewards, and the misuse of consumer data to damage reputations will increase in 2025. To access the complimentary report, click here.