Finding Tomorrow: The Long Road To Financial Freedom

Written by United Way

December 20, 2018

I’ve always dreamed of owning my own home. Yet, each month, around the time my bills are due, I get the same trapped feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’ve been dealing with this anxiety since I was 18, when I first started living on my own. Even as a 68-year-old widow today, the anxious feeling continues to linger and my dream of financial freedom still feels so far away.

When Michael, my husband of 30 years, passed away, the struggle only grew. Michael and I had spent countless hours talking about “tomorrow” — the day we would buy our very first home together. Suddenly, that dream of “tomorrow” was shattered. We never found the courage to take that leap into home-buying. On a limited income, with very limited financial know-how, the process of home ownership felt too complicated and too scary.

I remember years ago when Michael and I met with a local realtor. All I could do was stare blankly at the documents on the glossy table, while the bright fluorescent lights above nearly blinded me. The realtor’s words were foreign and daunting: “thirty-years,” “fixed-mortgage,” “$10,000 down,” “principal”. Even though that meeting was decades ago, the memory of how overwhelming it all felt is ingrained in my mind.

“The realtors words only seemed to point in a
direction of even more financial struggle for us.”

We had saved and saved for years for our own home, and for what? Now, I found myself alone, living in just another apartment. This was my reality for decades, simply trying to figure out my next move once my lease expired. With Michael gone and still no home to call my own, my financial struggles and that pit of worry in my stomach became even more frequent.

Then, one day after recalling my financial fears to a friend, she told me about Financial Opportunity Centers. She thought maybe they could connect me with a financial coach to help reach my financial goals.

Financial coaching? I’d always thought only rich people could afford a service like that. I was hesitant, but also hopeful. Maybe this could be the support I needed. The next day, while on my lunch break, I called my local FOC to schedule an appointment.

The next week, while waiting for my first meeting with a coach, that sick feeling began to creep up again. The thought of someone looking over my finances made me anxious. I couldn’t help but recall that day many years ago with the realtor.

Yet, meeting my financial coach quickly put my anxiety at ease. She called me into her office, shook my hand, smiled and began to ask me questions while reviewing my financial history. We took a look at the money Michael and I had already saved and talked in detail about my current situation. Gradually, we developed a plan that would allow me to continue building on the savings Michael and I had started.

I visited my financial coach monthly to reassess my situation. I began attending classes offered by the FOC to learn more about how to handle my money. Slowly, my seemingly unreachable dream of one day buying a home didn’t seem so far off. I became committed to doing what my late husband and I could never do: buy a home of my own.

A little before my 70th birthday, I became a first-time home owner of a one-story, cottage-style house on a small piece of land. After just one year of planning, I had accumulated more in savings than I ever thought possible.

The plants, the rooms and the space were all mine. For the first time in my life, I truly felt at home. Because I had a financial plan, that anxiety around financially struggling diminished. With a photo of Michael in the hall, I smiled and felt like our tomorrow was finally here.

*This blog post is fictional and based on a success story from LISC Toledo, who operates the Financial Opportunity Center Network. All identities of submitted success stories are anonymous for privacy and story details have been added in order to provide a better understanding of the individual’s successes and struggles.

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