Building wealth one phone call to Bob at a time

J. Crew bill. Victoria’s Secret bill. Capital One card bill, soon to become a daily call from… J. Crew bill. Victoria’s Secret bill. Capital One card bill, soon to become a daily call from a collections agency. The Verizon bill that covers the long distance phone calls and DSL connection. I cancelled cable two months ago, and my relationship with Sprint was terminated last month. (For the record: I ended it and Sprint wants me back, but I’m playing hard to get.) I must have forgotten something, because there is still money left over. Ah, rent.

Welcome to my new monthly routine.

I sit at my dining room table, which is really a black, all-purpose card table, and prepare three piles of little bits of paper: a small pile of pay stubs, a slightly larger pile of bank statements and ATM receipts and a heap of bills.

Although I may look like the before shot for one of those one-fix-credit commercials that come on television when financially secure people are tucked into their beds and snuggled under 800-count Egyptian cotton sheets, I am really just young, fabulous and broke. As if being young, gifted and black wasn’t challenging enough.

While I have struggled for the past few months to come up with a name for my peers and me, financial expert Suze Orman has us tagged. We are Generation Debt, graduates from college with student loans going into one of the weakest job markets in recent history. We have it pretty tough, but when the going gets tough, the tough protect their FICO scores and use credit cards wisely.

After reading Orman’s latest book, “The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous ‘ Broke,” (while listening to the great Donny Hathaway classic), I don’t feel too bad about taking that first step into real life on May 2, credit card in hand and debt on my financial record. It was through reading this book that I swallowed my pride with a spoonful of bitter reality. Mary Poppins would cringe, but my parents and I are rather pleased.

I’m taking baby steps.

In defining what it means to be broke, Orman noted that a broke person doesn’t open bills, out of sheer fear of how much is owed to a bank or collections agency. Did I not stop reading, put down the book and march over to the stack of letters from somewhere in Delaware with my name and “Important” stamped on the front? You know I did. I’d been called out by some woman who didn’t even know me. Step No. 1 was opening all of my mail and actually reading it — even the fine print.

Next, I called my credit card company, just as Orman suggests. The conversation with the representative went a little something like this:

“Bob, it’s Maria Nicole Smith here. Let’s see if we can’t do something about my credit line.”

“Well, Ms. Smith –“

“Please, call me Maria.”

“OK… Maria. What would you like to do with it?”

“Why extend it of course! All the young, fabulous and broke kids are doing it. I don’t want to be left out. If you could do this for me, I’d have a better debt-to-credit ratio, which would consequently improve my FICO score. An improved score could give me an edge in negotiating lower rates on my car loan and any future credit cards. Bob, do you see the big picture that I’m painting for you here? I need you to show me the money. Say it with me now… Show me the money.”

“Show you the money?”

“No, me. Show me the money.”

“Show me the money.”

“Well, Bob, I just told you how to get there. So are you gonna take me with you Bob? I promise to make my monthly payments on time.”

“Sure, Ms. Smi-, uh, Maria. Let me give you an extra $700 to play with there.”

“Great. Thanks so much, Bob. See you on the other side. Stay strong until I get there.”

“OK, girlfriend.”

Now forget the fact that Bob thinks he can call me “girlfriend” as if he and I go way back. The important thing is that I have more available credit on a card I cut up three weeks ago. I’m just paying it off now, and my timely payments are going to look like five gold stars on a kindergarten report card: absolutely fabulous!

It’s not easy.

Life hasn’t been the same without ESPN. And ask anyone who has tried to get in contact with me in the past month; they’ll tell you that I’m much harder to reach without a vibrating cell phone attached to my hip. I’d fantasize about shopping like I used to when I thought my little plastic cards were like demigods that would never run out of magical power. But I’m learning to discipline myself.

When the safety net of being a college student is ripped from under my feet, I’m going to be standing on my own two legs. I’d prefer to be standing in a direction toward mature, fabulous and wealthy than old, miserable and still broke.

Find out what a FICO score is. More importantly find out what your FICO score is and get Suze Orman’s book. It’s worth much more than that $100 psychology textbook.