Interview with GP Federal Credit Union with Angela Hutchins, Director of CRC Chattooga

um so Federal Credit Union versus a bank what's the differ the biggest difference is that the members of the credit union are owners of the credit union whereas stockholders and um board members are me like owners of the banks so whenever you pay into your membership you become an owner of that credit unit that that's pretty cool makes me feel special right hey I own a bank own part of a bank um so how much is the membership so the membership with us it it is typically lower than most memberships I keep hearing that most credit unions are $25 ours is $10 a person um you could even do joint memberships or primary memberships if you do a joint then of course it's $10 a person but across the board just $10 to be able to be vested in to be able to have the products and receive the services and that's $10 a month no that's a one time $10 oh that's a one time $10 okay so there's not a monthly charge we don't do maintenance fees anything so like the service charge that you get on a checking account do you guys don't do anything we don't have a monthly service charge a monthly maintenance Fe no so that's already better than than some bands so all right so one of the things so we're here on behalf of the food bank and the guest there at the food bank and like myself like I've made many mistakes in my finan es in the past I mean I ate at McDonald's today so one could argue I'm still making them um but for those that have like like credit scores like in the 500s and um just have it I'm using PayPal and cash cash app is a big one and you know those Online ways of getting money I've not got a checking account how can you guys help serious back on the right right track so we've all been there every one of us has been there there's been some kind of Hiccup along the road some kind of mess up where you've had to go back and what do I do so with that being said um one of the things that I do love about here is that you get a soft pool every quarter it shows up on your online banking um so it kind of gives you a really sound idea of what your FICO score is and where you sit um with that soft pool you know you can come in and sit down and we can progress from there look and see what you need help with look and see what kind of collections might need to be cleared up or if you need to stop having so many people run your credit a lot of people don't realize the more you let somebody run your credit it builds up what's called inquiries and that really harms your credit it's not helpful and it don't you don't get nowhere with that it just kind of hurts it and and harms it um but anyway um as far as that goes we can help you look to rebuild your credit we can help you with products that can help you rebuild your credit um a matter of fact I'm really big right now on working with our youth um we have lots of seniors that are coming through right now and lots of them are like where do I start what do I do I want to have a better credit score than than what my past Generations have had you know that is very crucial for our area as well we want to see our kids grow um so we start all them out with a $500 credit card we teach them what to do with that card we don't just hand it to them and let them walk out the door you know we break down this is how you need to utilize it this is how you need to make your payments this is what you need to look for this is what you need to watch for so we have been very successful with the youth in that area that really makes me excited yes um now as far as the checking accounts and things go the paypals the venos the cash apps a lot of those come with charges you're wasting your own money using those not only that but a lot of those are not secured so whenever they are haped you don't get that money back um a lot of people don't realize that there's not an FDIC there's not a um Credit Union Insurance there's nothing on those whereas with a credit union your funds are insured up to $250,000 um there's no monthly maintenance fees like I said we also offer products that actually allow you to start earning interest without having qualifiers without having limitations on how much you spend out of it or what you do with it and so it kind of works in tears on our checking in our savings and anything over $500 they start earning interest on that and it pays them over quarter so and no maintenance fee again like how can you be getting money for your money and not having to spend your money right right so we do offer a lot of those products to help people start earning those returns that they'd like to see if they don't have the funds to put into certificates of deposits or any type of investment accounts right and so that you're talking about helping people so you will sit down with them or someone here will just sit down with them AC at a desk face to face and walk them through absolutely yes I love to help people build their credit and reestablish their credit okay um a lot of people you know and let until you really work in finances that's that's a big thing you don't you don't have a real sound idea of what all credit consists of what are they looking at what are they looking for um I really like to be very transparent black and white with people and break that down for them so they have a very sound idea of what they're looking at and what's happening with their credit a lot of people don't realize like with credit cards you don't want to utilize the entire amount you only want to use maybe about 30 to 40% of that and make sure you're paying that back as quickly as you can because it just shows responsibility and some people come through and they've got five credit cards and they're like oh well I'm paying my payment my minimum payment every month well that's not really helping when you've maxed every one of them out so we like to teach them all the steps that are involved um what kind of credit you need you know I mean you a lot of people come in and they might have a $500 credit card and they're looking for a $15,000 insecure loan you got to work in steps to get to that area so we really do like to break down you know educational wise what to do with your credit and how to handle that and what all you need on your credit to get to where you need to be one of the things that I hear about often that happens in this county is people going to rent to own places and title pawns and I know from a little bit of finan that I have done that is a terrible terrible idea so if they could come in here and get started with that program uh with you guys and learn about how to do how to get their credit score up like you said starting them off with a credit card and but you guys do work up to you do unsecured loans you do mortgages and things like that we have an excellent mortgage officer um she is amazing I work hand in hand with her weekly and she also when someone comes in and say they just want a mortgage you know they have a membership they have a checking account and now they're wanting a mortgage they're not looking for a credit card or Auto or anything of that nature um when I send that over to her and she does the credit pools she also educates them as well just as much as we do we are all in this together and rolling the boat at the same time because buying a house you end up with all kinds of words that you've never heard before you've bought a house it can be extremely foreign 100% yes and you auto loans too too so um that's another thing that I'm sure some people are going to be looking for and so not waiting till it's the important urgent which is my I'm bad about it I put myself on the background to it's okay well it's just if it's not in the important urgent box it just doesn't get done um until so like if we need something like we're not saving for it and getting ready for it which we're going to try we're working we just started the Dave Ramsey uh program all over again so we're working on baby step number one um but once we um you know once we get that done we're going to be looking at focusing more on getting our credit score up and all those other things too which Dave Ramy doesn't like credit scores but we're going to work on both we're work on it yes um something else that we've actually introduced most recently that I'm really excited about is a power saers account and what that is because if you're like me I like to put all my money in my savings and then move whatever I need over as I'm going and just kind of pay my bills or whatever and what I got left is what I got left right the power Savers Works along with your checking account so anytime you swap your debit card say you're spending $3.50 it's going to round it up to $4 and it's going to put that 50 Cent into a sa's account you would not believe the amount of money that that thing grows just in a week's time alone without you thinking about it without even thinking about it I mean it when they introduced that and I I did the pilot room for him like a little guinea pig I thought okay we'll do this and see what it h happens you know it may not be a lot to some people but $60 in a month's time save just from your change it blew my mind I was like I don't have to put change in a bucket no more I can just my debit card so I mean it does help and it does help to grow that money very quickly and it does come in handy when they need it so that is something that I really excited that they brought out and started offering to people yeah one of the things where I was going to try to head a while ago with the Dave Ramsey is the of course with any kind of budgeting program you're thinking about it in the future and I feel like when I think about what GP Federal Credit Union has to offer like it's it's a a plan like you can sit down and work with them and so it's not as stressful you can get to a point you probably never thought you could get to because someone can else can somewhat hold you accountable and tell you things that you didn't know um and so I I'm just from the moment I heard about you guys I was excited so I I've not stopped being excited like the excitement's not worn off um you know we're 6 months into this with the new branch and and it's still very exciting and people come in and they're still like are you serious you really offer these things I'm like absolutely seriously like not only that but I'll go a step further and I things that I've personally chose to use in my life to help me I will introduce them things to them as well and show them how to operate those and use those and how to read those and what to look for um where a lot of people for example one of my biggest biggest favorite apps that I have on my phone is Credit Karma some people are fans some people are not not I'm going to go ahead and say it does not give you a right on credit score it gives you an idea of what your credit score is but it also lets you look at your TransUnion and your Equifax to make sure and it gives you tips and ideas and what to do and how to do it and when I sit down and explain those and show them on their own phone with their own credit stuff okay this is where you need to start this is what we need to look at and for example say someone sits down and they have three or four Collections and they're like I don't even know what to do with that the snap of a and I can show you exactly what to do with that and how you can contact these people and get these things squared up for even less than what you actually owe so and some people really don't understand that they can do those things so those those are important to me because what they don't understand is that one collection sitting there dragging your credit score down anywhere from 15 to 40 points a piece so I mean once you clear those up you know and it goes it's like best feeling ever to wake up and to get a notification that says your credit score went up and you're like yes and it gets a little addictive after a while it's kind of like I want to do this and I want to do that you know but it is also teaching you responsibility and holding you accountable for your finances as well I I do also believe in Credit Karma um and they also push the 30% and so anytime I've went over that 30% of all of my credit oh it lets you know it will let you know and it'll tell you specifically if you will put an extra $49 down on this credit card it will up your score a few points and so I I do like it is a good credit tool to have um and it is free it does not cost anything we both know that and to have something like that to access instead of having to go to like your annual creditreport.com and only get it once a year I want to see it like weekly monthly I want to see what's really happening in the full picture of things and if we looked at the actual credit report it's not going to mean this much to us no right I mean cuz you're Credit Karma spells it out for you yes absolutely so but like you said even if you don't understand Credit Karma you guys can can help help understand put that together and this is what itle IDE yeah this is what you can do with it over here so I'm just so excited I do plan on coming back and opening up my savings account here when we get baby step number one because I don't want to use it right so we had already talked about putting it in a different bank that's not on our online bank account that we can't transfer it and access right and access it and so um then we heard about you guys and we have haven't got to baby step one yet so but when we get there when you get there which I hope will be next week um you will see me again and we will come right on we will just start off and become a member and own a piece of a bank I'm going to be a bank owner the best fing ever but yes I do love it and U they are great people to work for it is a great company to work for I have never experienced such an outpour of care and compassion for a community as a when I came to work for them that's always been big to me from where I come from prior it was too Corp and it was taking away too much from from people I'm a people people person you know and I was like no I need to be able to work with our community to help them to grow them and so I'm extremely blessed and thankful that I was given this opportunity speaking of that let me take an opportunity to say thank you and for those that are watching this at the food fantry the red double doors that are locked in the hallway to keep everything safe is thanks to GP Federal Credit Union so they came in and seen a need and just they just jumped right on it and met that need and that's one of the steps that we have to get done before we can go further into the housing because we got to keep that food bank safe and we got to keep our future residents safe from anybody who comes in on the food bank side absolutely so um thank you guys it's up it's it's locked it's like the most Hightech thing in the building we just appreciate y'all letting us come in and help so it really does mean a lot to us yeah well and the paper too by the way thank you for the paper yes and if you ever need more just let me know I will I will so they have been a great help to the community and I've seen you guys at a lot of different events yes um so we've been there and everybody I get tickled right now because everybody's coming in and they're like oh you've been on vacation you've been in the sun no I've been in town absolutely yes I mean but it is fun just the the outpour of support um from our community has been phenomenal um I there is no way we could have done any of this without the community involved um I'm extremely thankful for that I have the most gratitude in the world to our members and to our community and to the people that are in it U they've really shown us and welcomed us with open arms and I love that well and I just know you guys are going to help the community so much I mean one of the things that we suffer from in Chuka County a lot of people will talk about the poverty but the hopelessness is worse than the poverty it is and you guys offer hope because when you sit down and you look at the long term and you look at the plan you will see hope at the end of that there is lot at the end of the tunn there is lot at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train and so um I just I'm I'm looking forward to hearing about all because I'm sure you guys are going to end up with reports of people who said I came to uh to GP Credit Union here and didn't have anything and now now I've got a car and now I've got a house especially these young kids that are you're starting off right yes with good credit scores and good discipline with those credit cards and hopefully they don't make all the mistakes that we've made that mean it's just when it's a passion it makes everything worth it it truly does well and when you can look you know Dave Ramsey I don't know you guys can do some of this easy calculation stuff too but when you start looking at if you put this much into the savings on a regular basis what it can do for you what it can do MH it doesn't take a lot like you said that power savings account just that little bit of change sitting there grows fast yes it does and then it's momentum to do more yes and more it's very encouraging it is yes and like I said it's about it's about feeding hope into the community so thank you guys thank you guys for being here I am just so excited for you guys we just love having everyone and we love being able to do our part that's what we do well thank you so much Courtney well thank you and uh so if you guys need some advice um come check out GP Credit Union come buy a portion of a bank with your membership and um you're all welcome you live work and worship come see us there you go that's a good point too live work or Worship in chatuga County so you don't have to live in chatuga County you can also work here just work or worship and I love the fact that there's even a bank that even is going to consider where someone worships yes that is awesome it is all right thank you guys and if you have any questions um you can ask me if I can't answer them I'm probably going to tell you to come see her anyway but if you have any questions you can come ask me I'm Angie and um thank you so much [Music] [Music]