I know my mom hoped that I would go to college, but she didn’t really have the information about what that looked like financially. I got good grades and probably could have gotten scholarships based on our income status, but I didn’t know where to find them or how to apply. I took two years off between high school and college, but I got a bachelor’s degree and paid for it with Pell grants and student loans.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s)/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
Most of the conversations I had with my mom about money were about how we didn’t have any. She didn’t (and still doesn’t) know much about personal finance and I doubt she has ever had more than $1,000 in savings at any given point of my life. My grandma taught me how to balance a checkbook (lol) when I was 19, and advised me to “pay myself first”. I couldn’t really afford to do that when I was younger, but I definitely do now.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job on the books was at a fast food restaurant my sophomore year of high school. I lied about my age to get hired and no one ever really checked? I got a job because I knew we couldn’t afford things like prom dresses or new clothes from the mall, and I wanted to fit in with my peers. I helped out with groceries and things around the house when I could, and I brought home a lot of free food from work.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Constantly. I lived in fear of being evicted, or not having enough food in the house, or getting the power or water shut off from a very young age. We didn’t have stable housing for most of my childhood and I went to five different elementary schools in five years. My mom was mentally ill and could not reliably work. We lived on state assistance, which did not stretch very far.
Do you worry about money now?
Constantly. The past year has been really hard on my finances for a number of reasons. First, I bought a fixer-upper in 2023 and unexpected house repairs have completely drained my savings. I took out a $60,000 HELOC last year to take care of some emergent issues and it’s basically all gone. My partner D. and I are currently getting the house ready to sell this year because we just can’t keep up with everything this place needs and we hate living in Salem. I’m worried we’re not going to be able to sell it, or that we’ll have to sell it at a loss. Second, we fostered my 3-year-old nephew for five months and the added childcare expenses put us into debt. We went from having a little bit of savings every month, to going into quite a bit of credit card debt every month just from paying for daycare, all the extra food (kids be EATING), clothes (kids be GROWING), and all the little things no one tells you to prepare to spend money on when you have kids. He was reunited with my sister last month and we are just starting to address the financial fallout. I have never had so little in savings in my big adult life and it is terrifying that we don’t even have two months of expenses covered if something catastrophic were to happen to either of us. I’m aggressively paying off our credit card and I got a balance transfer offer from one of my existing cards with 0% so I’ll be able to pay it off within a year. I will feel a lot better once the house situation is figured out, but it’s a really scary time for me right now.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I moved out when I graduated at 17 and have been responsible for myself since then. I used to be married into a well-to-do family, and they were my safety net for a long time (one of the reasons it took so long for me to admit that I didn’t want to be in that marriage).
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
When I was married, my ex’s parents gave us $12,000 for a down payment on our first house. We sold that house four years later and made $150,000 in profit. I walked away from the marriage with about $85,000 in savings from the equity in our second house. It seems so crazy to me that such a relatively small leg-up is the reason I am doing okay in life right now, but I guess that’s how generational wealth works. I am lucky to have benefited from it a bit because I have absolutely nothing coming to me from my own family, except maybe a dilapidated double-wide trailer.
