Gabriela has come a long way since four years ago. After the birth of her first baby girl, she had a mountain of debt pile up. But thanks to a quick Google search and a trusty spreadsheet, she’s been able to tackle her debt head on. Now, with a new baby boy at home, her next financial goal is finding a new home that can fit her growing family. Here’s her story:
“I'm a legal secretary for the district attorney's office in Salt Lake County. I was working at a call center. After I got married, I wanted to get out of the call center and expand a little bit. I had worked in an office in Florida, so I knew I had the skills. So, I just started applying. The district attorney’s office contacted me and wanted me to come in for an interview. I didn’t think I was qualified, but it worked out and now it'll have been six years in April.
After my daughter was born, I took off six months from work unpaid because at the time, we didn't have maternity leave. At that point, everything was going on credit cards so I had all this debt four years ago. Then two years ago, I said, “This is my time. I'm going to take care of this.” I've actually been working for the past two years to completely get out of credit card debt. We've been snowballing our debts to get that taken care of and we've done really well. I have about three months left on my spreadsheet that I set up. I feel like that's helped me stay focused. For me, I have to see it or it feels impossible. When I can see that amount shrinking, it really helps.
When I first found EarnIn, if I knew that I was going to go over my bank balance, I would just use EarnIn to take a hundred out of my next check because it was so much better than getting five overdraft fees for small little things. That has saved me so many times, especially this year. Even though I'm not in as bad of a financial situation, things still come up, especially when things are so uncertain. Especially with kids. I just always want to make sure that I don't have to pay whatever amount in overdraft fees. I can just cover it and take it from myself.
Our next financial goal would be to get into a bigger house. We own our house, but we’re growing. I had my son on March 14th so it was just when COVID was starting to pick up. I think we were looking to do that next year because we want to try to have a third baby at the end of this year, into next year.”
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