Alright, so let’s paint this financial health journey with a lady named Pat. Pat gets her naked ass up off that dirt plot she was sitting on. She walks over to a nearby lantana bush and fashions some clothing out of leaves (Pat is very talented). Then Pat finds a nice bystander and convinces them to order her an Uber to her parent’s house. Excellent! She arrives at her parent’s house and they welcome her with a confused look and open arms. Now Pat is all settled in her parent’s basement and she is fortunate enough to have shelter, a family to lean on, and a very fashionable sun dress made of vegetation (step 1 from previous post – lean on family, friends, and other resources).
Pat’s parents are nice enough to go to the thrift store and pick her up some clothes to wear so she can leave the house without getting arrested. Now a fully clothed Pat walks down the block to the local grocery store and gets a job bagging groceries (step 2 from previous post – earn an income/get a job). Pat feels so accomplished at this point. Not too long ago she was naked in the middle of nowhere sitting on a dirt plot. Now she has clothes, a job, and a dedicated shelter. Pat is very content, but she is also very driven. She knows she cannot bum-it in her Parent’s basement forever and she is certain life has more in store for her than bagging groceries at Food City.
Pat continues to work as much as possible and, conveniently, there is a bank located in the grocery store she works at and the friendly folks that work there educated her on opening up a checkings account. The people at the bank instructed Pat to deposit her paychecks into the checkings account and they gave her a debit card to access the money. Pat uses her debit card sparingly to support her physical and mental health and insists on giving her parents 10% of her earnings for supporting her.
Pat frequents the library and reads several books about personal finance. Using the library computer, she also stumbles across a life-changing blog called goodanuff.com. At the direction of this truly amazing blog, she does the following:
- Watches free tutorials on YouTube on the library computer about Microsoft Excel and becomes proficient using the program.
- Uses money in her checkings account to buy a basic, used laptop computer from the local electronics store and installs the Microsoft Excel program on her newly acquired computer.
- With Microsoft Excel and a computer of her own, Pat begins to absolutely conquer the shit out of the world.
Pat really wants to get a place of her own, but she isn’t sure if she can afford it and she is still learning about personal finance. So what does Pat do next?