Financial Education

Our mission is to help you transform credit from a barrier to a tool.

Learning how to manage your finances, make informed decisions about borrowing money, and monitoring your credit are all essential to making credit something that works FOR you, not against you.

Good financial habits include:

• Setting financial goals

• Committing to a monthly budget

• Spending less than you make

• Paying your bills on time

• Eliminating credit card debt

• Creating emergency savings

• Covering your essentials first

• Checking your credit

• Strategically building your credit

• Identifying and consciously deciding between wants and needs

• Reducing unnecessary expenses

• Maximizing your retirement savings

• Using “good” debt to invest in your future

• Avoiding “bad” debt that enters you into endless fee and interest cycles

Redbud’s Financial Education Services

At Redbud, we offer financial coaching to help you create a strategy for achieving financial stability, setting and reaching financial goals, and building credit.

You don’t have to apply for a loan to work with Redbud. We conduct individualized educational credit reviews – you don’t even have to be applying for a loan. In this review, we will go through each line of your credit report to identify which financial habits are helping and which are hurting your progress toward your goals.

Ready to get started on your financial wellness path? Give us a call at (606) 716-6100.

Partner Resources

Redbud has partnered with Commonwealth Credit Union to offer people in Redbud’s service area their free online financial education program: https://ccuky.enrich.org/

Our staff is also available for financial education presentations to your classroom or workplace! To learn more, please call us at (606) 716-6100.

Free Online Financial Education Program

FAQs and Other Resources

  • As a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), Redbud is able to work with people banks might normally turn down while offering better rates and more flexible terms than a finance company. Part of our application process is focused on making sure a Redbud loan can be a positive part of building your credit and enabling your dreams.
  • Call us at 606-716-6100 to learn more.
  • “Good” debt is money borrowed that helps you accomplish a goal (like buying a home or advancing your education) and that you can reasonably pay back. Borrowing (and paying back!) money from a lender that reports to the credit bureaus can help you build your credit score, which is an important factor in getting credit in the future.
  • With Redbud, we work to identify what your goals are, if and how a loan can help you reach those goals, and what strategies would work for building your credit.
  • Interested in learning more about healthy borrowing and good financial habits? Call us at 606-716-6100 or check out the Common Cents financial education program: https://ccuky.enrich.org/
  • Borrowing money can have negative impacts if you are unable to repay the debt. When you borrow money from a lender and do not make your repayments, the lender reports this to a credit bureau who then calculates a score that tells future lenders if you’re a good or bad borrower.
  • When borrowing money, it’s important to consider if the purchase you are making with that borrowed money is worth the risk of hurting your opportunities to make a bigger or more important purchase in the future if you are unable to maintain payments.
  • Want to know more about how to decide if borrowing money is the right move for you right now? Call us at 606-716-6100 or check out the Common Cents financial education program: https://ccuky.enrich.org/
  • When borrowing money, consider the cost of borrowing the money; what are the interest and fees included in your loan and how much will you pay in interest by the end of the loan? Will the payment be affordable for you? Will the payment schedule work with your paycheck schedule? Will payments be reports to the credit bureaus? What are the consequences if you do not repay your loan – do you risk losing a car or your home? How sure are you that you’ll be able to make your repayments? Is the reason for your loan worth the risk to your future credit opportunities?
  • Get help answering these questions and learn more about how to safely borrow money by calling us at 606-716-6100 or checking out the Common Cents financial education program: https://ccuky.enrich.org/
  • NerdWallet defines credit as “the ability to borrow money with the promise that you’ll repay it in the future.” You build good credit by paying debts on time, and bad credit by missing payments or letting bills go to collections. Your lenders report your payment history to the credit bureaus who assign you a score based on your payment history. When you apply to borrow money, the lender will look up your score and review your history. If you have good credit, you are more likely to be approved for a loan and will often get the loan at better terms and rates than if your credit is bad.
  • Learn more about credit by giving us a call at 606-716-6100 or through the Common Cents financial education program: https://ccuky.enrich.org/
  • The Common Cents financial education program is a free, self-guided, online program that offers lessons and information on a broad range of personal finance topics. https://ccuky.enrich.org/
  • Many personal finance advice sites offer a version of a debt payoff calculator. Here’s one that allows you to enter multiple debts and adjust the strategies to identify what works best for your situation: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/credit-card-payoff-calculator
  • Regularly checking your credit report is a great way to make sure you’re on track to achieving your financial goals. When you check your report, you can look for forgotten or unknown collections or fraudulent activity that might affect your opportunity to get credit in the future. You are entitled to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus. You can get that free copy here: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action
  • Another free resource to track your credit report is Credit Karma, which helps you and easily monitor changes in your score. The score provided by Credit Karma is not an official score, but you can get an idea of if your score is improving or declining, and Credit Karma provides some education to help you understand what’s happening with your credit. https://www.creditkarma.com/