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You may be familiar with this conundrum, especially if you’re a recent college grad or just venturing out on your own: You need credit to get credit. Lenders want to see your track record as a borrower before approving you for a credit card or car loan. So how do you get started?

The academic world has found an intriguing solution. Building on their previous study of grocery shoppers, professors from the University of Notre Dame, Rice University, and Northwestern University recently determined that shopping habits overall — not just for groceries — say a lot about how likely someone is to pay back their loans.

The new study compared purchase data from a group of people in Peru with their records from the country’s national credit registry. Looking at a broad swath of purchases — including clothing, household goods, and home improvement items — the professors found that people who bought items on sale, shopped at regular times, and consistently avoided cash payments posed a lower default risk than those who didn’t.

In fact, according to these researchers, if lenders used shopping data as part of their vetting process, they could double or even triple credit card approval rates for first-time borrowers without risking a significant increase in unpaid debts.

(The grocery study found a similar correlation with bargain shoppers, and determined that people are more likely to pay their bills on time if they grocery shop on the same days, spend similar amounts, and choose the same products.)

So what? As a growing body of research suggests that lenders use less traditional data sources to decide who to loan to, building healthy financial habits could take on a whole new meaning. Even if you already have a solid track record with credit, it could become more important to cultivate not just responsible borrowing habits, but also prudent spending habits.

And in the meantime, if you’re trying to get a credit card or loan without a credit history, consider getting a secured credit card or becoming an authorized user on a parent’s account first. (Don’t do this, though, if your parents don’t have good credit habits — or if you’re less sure that you will — because it can impact both you and your parent.)

Related Reading

Dear SoFi, How Do I Avoid Messing Up My First Credit Card? (SoFi)

How to Use Rent-Reporting Services to Build Credit (NerdWallet)

Surprising Trends in American Spending Habits You Need to Know (Investopedia)

Please understand that this information provided is general in nature and shouldn’t be construed as a recommendation or solicitation of any products offered by SoFi’s affiliates and subsidiaries. In addition, this information is by no means meant to provide investment or financial advice, nor is it intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision or recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Keep in mind that investing involves risk, and past performance of an asset never guarantees future results or returns. It’s important for investors to consider their specific financial needs, goals, and risk profile before making an investment decision.

The information and analysis provided through hyperlinks to third party websites, while believed to be accurate, cannot be guaranteed by SoFi. These links are provided for informational purposes and should not be viewed as an endorsement. No brands or products mentioned are affiliated with SoFi, nor do they endorse or sponsor this content.

SoFi isn't recommending and is not affiliated with the brands or companies displayed. Brands displayed neither endorse or sponsor this article. Third party trademarks and service marks referenced are property of their respective owners.

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The government shutdown continues this week and there’s little sign of a near-term resolution. With betting markets expecting it to drag on for weeks, investors will need to continue navigating through an economic data fog. Two important sources of clarity will help pierce through the cloud, however.

First and foremost: Though most government data is on hold during the shutdown, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a critical exception. Due to its importance in calculating annual cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security benefits, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced it’ll be releasing the report on Friday. Already the most tracked by market participants, this report is even more important while investors are making due without other economic data.

And we can’t forget about corporate America. The pace of third-quarter earnings reports picks up significantly this week, with a host of companies from various sectors set to share their results. These reports will provide a real-time, bottom-up perspective on the health of the economy, straight from those who are on the business front lines.

Economic and Earnings Calendar

Most releases involving government data will not be released while the shutdown is ongoing.

Monday

•  September Leading Economic Index: This is an index composed of various economic indicators that have historically led changes in the broader economy.

•  Earnings: Steel Dynamics (STLD), W R Berkley (WRB)

Tuesday

•  October Philadelphia Fed Non-Manufacturing Activity: The Philadelphia Fed’s survey of services executives in the region on business conditions and their outlook.

•  Earnings: Chubb (CB), Capital One Financial (COF), Quest Diagnostics (DGX), Danaher (DHR), Equifax (EFX), Elevance Health (ELV), EQT (EQT), General Electric (GE), General Motors (GM), Genuine Parts (GPC), Halliburton (HAL), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Coca-Cola (KO), Lockheed Martin (LMT), 3M (MMM), Nasdaq (NDAQ), Netflix (NFLX), Northrop Grumman (NOC), Omnicom Group (OMC), PACCAR (PCAR), PulteGroup (PHM), Philip Morris International (PM), Pentair (PNR), Raytheon Technologies (RTX), Texas Instruments (TXN)

Wednesday

•  Weekly Mortgage Applications: Mortgage activity gives insight on demand conditions in the housing market.

•  Earnings: Amphenol (APH), Avery Dennison (AVY), Boston Scientific (BSX), Crown Castle International (CCI), CME Group (CME), FirstEnergy (FE), Globe Life (GL), Hilton Worldwide Holdings (HLT), International Business Machines (IBM), Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Lennox International (LII), Lam Research (LRCX), Southwest Airlines (LUV), Las Vegas Sands (LVS), Moody’s (MCO), Molina Healthcare (MOH), Northern Trust (NTRS), NVR (NVR), O’Reilly Automotive (ORLY), Packaging of America (PKG), Raymond James Financial (RJF), AT&T (T), Teledyne Technologies (TDY), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), Tesla (TSLA), United Rentals (URI), Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies (WAB)

Thursday

•  August Wholesale Inventories and Sales: Wholesalers often operate as an intermediary between manufacturers and retailers, serving as a key part of the goods supply chain.

•  Weekly Jobless Claims: This high frequency labor market data gives insight into filings for unemployment benefits.

•  Fedspeak: Kashkari will moderate a conversation with Barr at the Economic Club of Minnesota. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly will take part in a moderated conversation on technology and the economy.

•  Earnings: Delta Air Lines (DAL), PepsiCo (PEP)

Friday

•  October University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment: How consumers feel about economic conditions affect their spending habits. This survey places a particular focus on inflation and its trajectory.

•  September Treasury Statement: This summarizes the U.S. federal government budget by tracking government revenues and expenditures.

•  Fedspeak: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will give welcome remarks at the regional bank’s Community Bankers Symposium. Musalem will take part in a fireside chat on the economy and monetary policy.

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Please understand that this information provided is general in nature and shouldn’t be construed as a recommendation or solicitation of any products offered by SoFi’s affiliates and subsidiaries. In addition, this information is by no means meant to provide investment or financial advice, nor is it intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision or recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Keep in mind that investing involves risk, and past performance of an asset never guarantees future results or returns. It’s important for investors to consider their specific financial needs, goals, and risk profile before making an investment decision.

The information and analysis provided through hyperlinks to third party websites, while believed to be accurate, cannot be guaranteed by SoFi. These links are provided for informational purposes and should not be viewed as an endorsement. No brands or products mentioned are affiliated with SoFi, nor do they endorse or sponsor this content.

SoFi isn't recommending and is not affiliated with the brands or companies displayed. Brands displayed neither endorse or sponsor this article. Third party trademarks and service marks referenced are property of their respective owners.

This article appeared in SoFi's On the Money newsletter. Not getting it? Sign up here.

Let’s say you log into your bank account, and zap: You see that your home insurance or tuition has just taken a big chunk off your balance. It’s a legitimate bill, but you’ve been distracted by 10,000 other things and forgot that you’d put it on autopay. Now you’ll have to scramble to make sure you’ve got enough money to cover your other expenses.

Some bills — property taxes, college tuition, car or home insurance, HOA dues, club fees, or vehicle registrations — are more likely to wreak havoc on your finances because you may only pay them once or twice a year (or at least on a less-than-monthly basis.) For gig and freelance workers, it’s often a big income tax bill that catches you off guard.

But what if you took the automatic concept from auto-pay and used it to auto-save as well? Just as you might already be putting 10% or 20% of every paycheck straight into your 401(k) or IRA, you can plan in advance, funnelling set amounts of your income into accounts designated for other specific expenses. Smaller chunks can make big bills feel a lot more manageable.

Chris Colson, a payments expert at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, calls it good old-fashioned earmarking, just with a digital twist.

“As programmable payments become more common, an old-school budgeting idea is making a comeback: earmarking,” Colson wrote in a recent blog post. “It’s a simple concept, but when combined with automation, it could be the budgeting upgrade many people and businesses have been waiting for.”

(Pro tip: Even though monthly payments can be an option for things like car insurance or propane, consider the tradeoffs if you give up pay-in-full discounts.)

So what would you need to do? The key is to make technology do as much of the work as possible — and keep you disciplined.

•   Make your list: It’s easy to forget all the bills you have, especially if it’s been 11 months. Comb back through your credit card and bank transactions to make a list of the less-frequent but significant bills you want to save up for.

•   Do the math: For each bill on your list, divide the amount by the number of months before it’s due again. That’s how much you’ll need to set aside each month. For example, to pay your boat’s annual $1,200 marina slip fee, you’d need to set aside $100 per month. (You can also divide your bill by 52 to get a weekly amount.) And if you know your bill is likely to go up, maybe add in an extra month’s worth.

•   Set up the rules: Use your bank or budgeting app to separate your paycheck and other income into buckets allocated for each bill. Set up recurring transfers so the fixed dollar amounts you determined in the previous step are automatically deducted each week or month. (With SoFi Savings Vaults, you can set up as many as 20 different customized buckets – and earn a competitive interest rate.)

•   Consider this method for more than bills: You can use this savings approach for any large, infrequent expenses. Holiday gifts, back-to-school shopping, or anniversary trips. (Think of it as the envelope or cash-stuffing method, but in automated, digital form.)

Related Reading

•  Automatic Savings Plan: What it Means, How it Works, Example (Investopedia)

•  5 Ways To Grow Your Savings With Automatic Transfers (Bankrate)

•  AI Budgeting Tools: Personal Finance Management (SoFi)

Please understand that this information provided is general in nature and shouldn’t be construed as a recommendation or solicitation of any products offered by SoFi’s affiliates and subsidiaries. In addition, this information is by no means meant to provide investment or financial advice, nor is it intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision or recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Keep in mind that investing involves risk, and past performance of an asset never guarantees future results or returns. It’s important for investors to consider their specific financial needs, goals, and risk profile before making an investment decision.

The information and analysis provided through hyperlinks to third party websites, while believed to be accurate, cannot be guaranteed by SoFi. These links are provided for informational purposes and should not be viewed as an endorsement. No brands or products mentioned are affiliated with SoFi, nor do they endorse or sponsor this content.

SoFi isn't recommending and is not affiliated with the brands or companies displayed. Brands displayed neither endorse or sponsor this article. Third party trademarks and service marks referenced are property of their respective owners.

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Closing Time

We’ve become accustomed to government funding debates and the drama as we approach each potential shutdown. Typically, they’re “solved” in the 11th hour. Not this time.

For the first time since 2018, the U.S. government shut down due to unresolved funding arguments between Democrats and Republicans.

Government Funding Lapses

However, this shutdown comes with a much different backdrop than 2018, which lasted 35 days: Markets have been strong, the Fed just cut rates, and the unemployment rate is rising. The opposite was true on all three accounts in 2018.

From an investor sentiment perspective, we’re in much better shape today than we were then. Late 2018 was marred by a confusing message from the Fed and rate hikes that fueled a swift market sell-off of nearly 20% in the fourth quarter. Much like today, the Fed was on a normalization path, but it was hiking rates from a historically low level.

Now the Fed is cutting to normalize rates as the economy cools and inflation pressures abate. This is not to say that a government shutdown is no big deal. It is a big deal and it has many consequences. But given the supportive sentiment backdrop, we may be able to manage through this in markets.

Friday Is Cancelled

One of the wrinkles investors may have to contend with is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) won’t release economic data during the government shutdown. The next jobs report, due out this Friday, is an important piece to the Fed’s rate cut puzzle. Markets are watching this data closely, especially after large downward revisions in the prior few months and the recent firing of the head of the organization.

If the ADP employment report (a private sector survey that does get released during a shutdown) is any preview, the labor market continued to cool in September. It’s worth noting, though, that the ADP and BLS data don’t usually show a clear relationship and can often paint very different pictures.

ADP Private Employment Change

Adding to the muddiness is how the shutdown may affect the labor data for October. Even if short-lived, government shutdowns typically result in furloughs of federal employees. Though markets have historically done fine during and after a government shutdown (more on this below), this is an inconvenient time to have less visibility into labor data.

Distraction More than Detraction

Over the past 50 years, the government has shut down 20 times for an average of eight days each time. As unsettling as a shutdown may be, markets have weathered the storms quite well.

The chart below shows S&P 500 performance for the three months following the end of each shutdown, with a median return of 2.4%. In all of these cases, there were other things going on in the background that affected markets, but it’s important to note that the shutdowns didn’t seem to be the instigator of major drawdowns on balance.

S&P 500 3-Month Price Return Post-Shutdown

I’m writing this column on day one of the shutdown, so there are still many unknowns. Some believe this could last 3-4 weeks and result in permanent layoffs (rather than furloughs), but the reality is we really don’t know. What we do know is that it’s very possible, if not probable, that political polarization will continue. So markets will need to digest ongoing policy uncertainty.

Although frustrating for investors to live through, markets have looked through shutdowns in the past, regarding them more as distractions than serious volatility triggers. With this in mind, a steady hand is crucial. It’s important to resist any knee-jerk reactions during the early days. Stay prudently present in markets.

Want more insights from Liz? The Important Part: Investing With Liz Thomas, a podcast from SoFi, takes listeners through today’s top-of-mind themes in investing and breaks them down into digestible and actionable pieces.

SoFi can’t guarantee future financial performance, and past performance is no indication of future success. This information isn’t financial advice. Investment decisions should be based on specific financial needs, goals and risk appetite.

Communication of SoFi Wealth LLC an SEC Registered Investment Adviser. Information about SoFi Wealth’s advisory operations, services, and fees is set forth in SoFi Wealth’s current Form ADV Part 2 (Brochure), a copy of which is available upon request and at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Liz Thomas is a Registered Representative of SoFi Securities and Investment Advisor Representative of SoFi Wealth. Form ADV 2A is available at www.sofi.com/legal/adv.

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