If there's ever been a good time to get your financial future in order, it's now. Let's discuss why 2023 is the time to get moving and stop looking back.

As we've spoken about more and more in recent months, the current state of the economy (as well as the future) is extremely unpredictable. It's quite possibly more confusing and uncertain than any other time in history.

When you take the step backwards in time to review the various financial and economic difficulties that we've faced as a nation, there are particular points on the timeline that stand out. From the housing bubble burst of 2008 to the post-9/11 recession and the oil crisis of the 1970's, there have been many events that have wreaked havoc on the markets and caused serious issues among the consumer's ability to earn, spend, and save as they normally would.

Learning From The Past

One of the most widely known and most frequently used examples would be the Great Depression, which began in 1929 and was surely the strongest and longest lasting economic downturns that a United States has ever faced. It was a complete collapse of the economy. While there were many warning signs, the initial impact of the real event itself came swift and strong - almost as if one day everything was fine, and the next day everything fell apart. It didn't literally happen overnight, however it surely felt that way for many people.

While many warned and predicted the approaching chaos of the Great Depression, we must understand that this happened during a very different time than we live in today. Less people were informed about the risks that waited ahead, fewer people understood how and why it happened (including the principal causes), and the amount of information available at this point in time was limited by technology, logistics, and the general speed and manner in which information flowed. There were no cell phones or internet, there weren't TVs in every home, and there were no instant methods of communication that were widely available except perhaps for the radio.

During the time when the Great Depression took place, there were several other factors that were very different from today. The methods used for purchasing, transporting, and delivering raw goods and materials was radically different. The ways people ran their businesses and provided products and services to their customers was also so far away from the reality that we live in today that it's hard for us to even imagine. The same can be said for the way that banks operated, how credit was utilized, and how currency was managed.

The Rise Of The Information Age

We live in the information age. This is a time where almost anything and everything you can imagine is available for viewing, learning, or purchasing directly from the palm of your hand. In the past, a single digital computer which previously ran extremely basic processes required the use of a semi trailer truck to transport. Today, cellular phones that fit in our pockets are able to access literally anything we can possibly imagine. They can instantly access the worldwide web, they have high resolution video cameras built-in, and they allow us to access our bank accounts, buy goods, share a variety of data and media, or send $100k overseas in mere seconds - all while walking down the street or sitting at a stoplight in our air-conditioned vehicles on a hot summer day.

We can use our smartphones to sign a contract for a new job position, or file for a divorce. We can not only check the weather, but we can check the exact history of the weather over any given city within the US for the last 50 years. If you want to know the amount of snow that fell over New York during a specific day 20 years ago, it's highly probable that your smartphone's weather app can tell you - but of course you'd need to pay for that feature, because they way that advertising works has also changed with the times, and most of us are probably using a free weather app.

In the information age, one of the most valuable things in existence is data. Pure and simple data. There are many forms in which data can be derived, determined, categorized, or compartmentalized but at the end of the day, data is data. And the one thing that there is no shortage of - but that we can also seemingly never get enough of - is data.

The Underestimated Value Of Data

Companies pay immense, incomprehensible amounts of money for data today. Data to grow their business, data to prevent their business from outside threats, and even data about their business itself, delivered by third-party businesses who specialize in providing companies with data about their own internal and/or external whereabouts and well-being. If digital data were compared to any other product, resource or good by pure weight is easily the most valuable (and therefore expensive) thing on this earth. On a single USB drive we can hold hundreds of millions of dollars in consumer data or marketing information. And even if the weight of the thumb drive were included, are you aware of anything that costs hundreds of millions of dollars per ounce?

Let's take that from a different perspective. About 5 years ago, a total of all of the stored data on the internet equated to 5 million terabytes, and if it had to be converted into physical weight, it would only be 0.2 millionths of an ounce. It is virtually (no pun intended) weightless. You can see a cool and very interesting short video about how much the internet weighs here, but the point remains true that data is priceless in this day and age.

Making Decisions

Now, let's ask ourselves a question. What do we do when we're required to make important decisions? Well, for starters - and at the most basic level - we use data. Whether it's internal or external, it's all about data. Internal data from our minds (i.e. our experiences, the lessons we've learned, etc.) and external data from any helpful and available resource. This might come in the form of a book, some paperwork, the internet, or even the advice or ideas of another human being. Regardless, decisions are always and inevitably based on data.

So what in the world does any of this have to do with the idea of 2023 being the best year to secure financing? A lot. For starters, we have more data available to us than any time prior in history and the amount of data available grows by the minute. Second, data will almost always include some type of pattern. These can be micro-patterns or longer-term patterns, but usually there are patterns involved. When we take a giant step back and take a look at the larger financial and economic situation, we can see that what's occurring follows a sort of pattern. These hardships and uncertainties are not new to humanity. However, never before in history have we seen this exact type of situation occur because we've never had such immense, complex, complete, and totally all-encompassing data sets that we currently have. Also, we never had the same level of technology to carry out analysis, to strategize, or to utilize or abundant amounts of data in understandale and functional formatting like we have today.

Our resources are better than ever, our ability to gain a leading edge by using gathered information is second-to-none, and the speed at which we can obtain all of this is faster than ever. This means that we're in the perfect position to make the most important decisions of our lives, today - or at any given moment. All we have to do is be intelligent enough to utilize the resources at hand. And it's safe to say that there is no shortage of resources.

There is one resource though, a single thing that we can never quite obtain with certainty; what is going to occur in the future. And what do we do about this problem? The best thing we have at our disposal is.... You guessed it - use data. And when we do this analysis, what we discover is rather alarming - because again, we've never been in this exact situation before.

The Future of Financing and Economic Hurdles

We've literally just finished a 3 year pandemic (or is it still going on?). We're dealing with inflation that is out of control (or is it under control?). We have banks that are failing left and right, which is a big threat to our economic future (or is it not?). We have a stock market that functions completely contrary to any logical and/or technical explanation and is currently defying all of the major factors that typically account for it's performance (or is it simply just going through ups and downs as always?). The cost of living in general is astronomical in relation to wages, and wages are not increasing quickly enough (or are we just not working enough?) Unemployment numbers continually set new records, yet there are more job openings than ever before (or are these job openings actually for an insignificant number of hours, low-wage, and with extreme demands that do not fit within the typical job-seeker's perception of what's acceptable?). We have more technology than ever before but we're not using it to improve our overall quality of life as a society (or are we?). We are still facing ongoing and endless issues with the supply chain but we're unable to explain why (or is there an explanation?).

You see, what's happening in this very moment in the global economic landscape is something that will forever be marked in the history books. All indicators (and yes, we mean literally all of them), from housing to food, from employment to wages, from education to retirement, from insurance costs to healthcare costs, from the rate of interest on a credit card to the yield of a 10-year bond all point in the same direction. If these indicators were all human beings, they would all speak the same language and if you asked them where they were headed, they would tell you that they're not sure. However, it would be very clear to anyone who observed and evaluated these indicators as a group instead of individually - no matter how far apart they sit or stand from one another - that they're all heading in the same direction. You can call their final destination "the new normal". In fact, you don't even have to give it a name. All you need to understand is that the direction of every single data set at this point in time, regardless of the historical data or patterns you might have at your disposal, is completely untraditional, uncertain, and unstable.

Numbers Don't Lie... But They Can Try To

You can ignore this information if you prefer. You can easily write it off and simply consider it to be nothing more than complete garbage. You can disagree, you can argue it, and you can make excuses against it. However, you cannot deliver a valid response which proves the historical data to be wrong and/or holds more validity than what we are proving here. When all indicators point in the same direction, there is no other data-based option for making forward movement with any true level of confidence. You must pay attention to the data, and use it to act accordingly.

You've heard the prettier side of things for the last couple years now, but you've experienced a much different day-to-day. Temporary inflation that was going to be very short lived and was the result of many things which were never made truthfully clear is still kicking right along. The jobs that were going to come back with the higher paying wages as companies regroup after the pandemic are nowhere to be found in the vast majority of industries. What is officially labeled as "consumer confidence" can easily be dismantled via real data, then easily and factually be shown to be nothing of the sort. The lack of liquidity and the average amount of actual available cash at any given moment for the typical American is at poverty level, and lower than it's ever been for such an advanced and capable society. Unfortunately, we generally don't see this as something unusual or from a negative perspective, as we've been living this way for an extended period and are just beginning to feel the first real sting of it all.

We do not peddle fear, and we don't deal in talking party politics. We are experts at providing a financial service that aids people in achieving their financial goals when they have no other means to do so. We are not here to tell you that the end is near - because if it was, the last thing you should be doing is worrying about your credit score and trying to finance things. What we can say with complete confidence is that we're honest, we're transparent, and we're direct. We deliver the absolute best service possible to our customers, and we take a great amount of pride in that. But it must be mentioned that in order for our business to succeed and to properly understand what's happening both financially and economically, we must pay close attention to the bigger picture at all times.

From our perspective, their is a very special and unique sight to be seen unfolding, loaded with metrics and data from all kinds of industries that would normally not be considered relevant to one another. What we gather is that there is absolutely no intent or probability for the current state of financial and economic affairs to reverse itself. Not anytime in the near future at least, and not based on all the key indicators and never-ending data that helps us understand what to expect when considering the needs of our customers and clients.

Is 2023 the best year to secure financing? Many people would tell you "absolutely not!", and at the surface their response is quite valid. Interest rates are sky-high, central banks are changing their attitude and outlook from week to week while circling back and repeating in something that looks like a giant loop of infinite excuses, and people around the world are telling you - in real life, not on TV - that they have less money and that they are struggling. With all of this, why would you ever want to finance a home or buy a new car? The answer is simple. There is absolutely no data showing that a return to the "old normal" will occur anytime soon, if at all.

Don't Worry, The End Is Not Near

The sky isn't falling. The economy is not collapsing. The banks are not all crashing. The world has not come to a complete halt. We are a long way away from these issues, but the issues at hand tell a very powerful and clear story. There is a strong likelihood that inflation will continue, that interest rates will not fall back, and that the average person will not suddenly begin making more money for no reason at all. To pile on something else - and if we're correct in saying this - lenders will be forced (unless they want to cease business) to tighten their restrictions on lending by raising interest rates and increasing the requirements for financing. If not, they will risk losing everything and possibly failing altogether, and since they understand data and how to read it, they will not allow that to happen. Consider all of this. Accept that this very well may be the new normal. But instead of running around scared and paranoid, instead of overreacting, understand that there is very little you can do about it apart from take personal action to secure your own future. If that includes financing a home at 6.5% interest rather than 9, 10, or 14% interest at a date 16 months from now, it would be a wise move to go with the times and secure your financing sooner rather than later. Sadly, the data just doesn't show that there are flourishing financial lands on the horizon.

Credit Scoring Also Plays A Role

If you need assistance in financing a home, an auto loan, or a personal loan, your credit score is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. If you want to finance more, or if you simply want to finance anything at all, you'll need to prove your creditworthiness. If you think (or if you know) that a increase in your credit score is required to achieve the financing you desire, we can help you with the very simple, direct, and proven method of adding authorized user tradelines to your credit profile. If you're not sure what these are or how they work, get in contact and we'll help you get on the right path. You don't want to regret waiting for something that isn't guaranteed to come. If you're determined and intelligent, you'll get the message and you'll take the appropriate action.

No, 2023 may not look like the best year for securing financing, but we're living in 2023 right now. You don't want to look back and wish you didn't decide to wait for something magnificent to happen, especially when the hard data is not displaying that probability.

Why wait and end up spending more, when you can act now and secure your financing with the confidence of knowing that the information and data that's currently available? Think about that. It doesn't make much sense, does it....? No, it doesn't. And if you're ready to finance, take a look at our tradelines for sale. You just might learn how to lock in a much better financing agreement if you have the right tools.

We're here to help, and we're on your team. Reach out to GFS Group today and ask us what we can do for you to optimize your credit score. It will aid you in getting the best financing available.