Cleveland saver changes financial life
Saving to Change Her Life
Since enrolling in Cleveland Saves about a year and a half ago, Melony Butler has bought a house and a car. She paid cash for everything she bought to furnish the house except her appliances, and those she paid off early. In the process, she said, she has become “a more complete, more satisfied person.”
Ms. Butler’s transformation began when she became a Dress for Success Cleveland client and started attending their job retention program. Professional Women’s Group. That program’s presentation on personal finance helped her to realize that she could change her situation. “It’s all about what you want. When you want more, you will do what it takes to get more,” she explained.
Hearing speakers from Consumer Credit Counseling prompted her to take an inventory of her financial situation and to focus on practical things she could do to save money. A meeting with a Cleveland Saves wealth-building counselor helped her to assess her situation and make sure she was on the right track.
So she set up and automatic payroll deposit into a savings account where she wouldn’t be tempted to spend it. Like many Savers, Ms. Butler also collects her spare change - $300 so far. She cut down on unnecessary expenditures, and she stopped buying her lunch every day at work and started brown bagging it. With simple steps like these, her savings quickly began to grow. “It seemed so simple once I started doing it,” she said.
Her advice for other Savers? “Make sure when you find some savings, you actually tuck it away somewhere. If you keep it in your pocket, you’ll spend it.” You know that you can’t go to every concert and show, because you are trying to get somewhere.” Setting a goal and concentrating on that helps, she said, because you know “its not going to be forever.”
What she’s gotten from Cleveland Saves, she said, is “direction and reinforcement.” When you don’t have the information you need, you “feel stuck in a negative mode,” she said. Cleveland Saves “offered me release from being stagnant. It offered me freedom of choice.” Maybe I wouldn’t have sought out the information,” she added. “It came to me.” That is important, she said, “because you don’t know that you don’t know something until someone makes you aware.”
Having recently attended a Cleveland Saves seminar on managing credit wisely, Ms. Butler’s new aim is to “have more of a cushion of savings” and to pay down her credit card debts to improve her credit score. “My thing now is to really work on my stewardship,” she said.
“It seemed so simple once I started doing it.” --Melony Butler