By: Lyndsey Ducharme, MFF Fellow & Mom of Twins
Money has been my least favorite subject, with school following close behind. So how did I end up taking the Financial Literacy course at MFF? This course is the beginning to my family’s new life. In order for my family to move forward with our dreams and goals, we need to get a handle on our finances.
Here’s a quick history on my family and how we got here. My husband and I were living in Colorado when we found out we were pregnant with twins. This led us to the decision to move back to New Hampshire to be near our family support system. That move was the beginning of our family debt. The move went on a credit card that we planned to pay off, but life got in the way. Today, we are still paying for it. My husband is a hard working man, who is the sole provider for our family. We have twin boys who are in kindergarten, and I am a stay-at-home mom. We currently own a two-family apartment building. It is our family goal to buy, refurbish, manage and sell homes. This has been a longtime dream of ours. Our two-family apartment building was our first step toward this goal.
We are ready to make the sacrifices to become well-educated and take the steps to achieve our goals. We want to create a business that we can get our boys involved in and be flexible enough so we can be there for all the special moments in our kids’ lives. The Financial Literacy course at MFF is the beginning of my financial education. I am learning to be proactive instead of reactive with money, while learning how to pay down debt to set us up for our goals. In the long run, this will benefit our kids and help us teach them about financial literacy along the way.
Everyone knows what’s going on in the world right with the Coronavirus. The virus has started to affect our home in a few different ways, one of them being financially. If my husband can’t work, then we have no income other than the apartment rental income. That income could also dry up. This could really affect our goals and make them take longer. Patience is not a virtue I have. Additional financial strains that will arise are food, house costs and school supplies. Social distancing has made it so we have to stock up for weeks on end. That is not easy, due to the cost. My kids are now temporarily homeschooled, which has affected our family in a big way. This is only temporary, but could extend through the remainder of the school year. This changes our life in ways we did not expect. I will be spending more time focused on creating lesson plans and teaching, versus focusing primarily on our financial goals. It will eventually come to focus again, but right now things have shifted. What is going on right now does create a fear of more debt that was not our choice. The Coronavirus is making everyone look at money in a new way. On the positive side, I was able to buy oil at a low price!
We are taking it day-by-day for our goals, social distancing and what all this means for our finances. One day at time. One purchase at a time. Stay tuned for my series about our family’s journey through financial learning, social distancing, and reaching our goals.
