Bouncing Back: How American Families Are Dealing With The New Cost Of Living

foreign [Music] hi there I'm Stephanie Rule and welcome to bouncing back all across the U.S families are facing unprecedented challenges economic ones and that's happening even as we're all getting back to work inflation is still stubbornly high and while we're dealing with that we've got more and more worries that a recession may be coming so where does that leave everyday Americans well for many it means tightening already limited budgets trying to get creative and stretching every dollar doing more with less so I sat down with two families and laid out a financial roadmap for a time that looks like it could be uncertain ahead foreign [Music] ER I live with my husband my daughter in Erie Pennsylvania Elizabeth nicewonger is a stay-at-home mom like many families the pandemic forced her and her husband Chris to face some difficult unprecedented challenges my husband Chris works at a warehouse he does maintenance work he makes 16 an hour before the pandemic he was working in warehousing tube he was doing forklift operation so he was making significantly more money than he's doing right now when Chris lost his job it really hurt their finances and eventually they had to file for bankruptcy we had a lot of bills that were past due from the pandemic and we had some credit cards which we hadn't had before and we had some personal loans we had to make choices between pay rent or pay those bills and a roof was more important so those all kind of went to the Wayside and it caught up with us her daughter Gracie has special needs and they recently moved so they could be closer to her medical specialists I'm a stay-at-home mom I take care of my daughter she has non-verbal autism and some health issues so it's a 24-hour seven day a week always on-call job more more good job plus with groceries costing more they faced even greater Financial strain she has some pretty severe Dairy and gluten allergies it's significantly more expensive to cover her needs than a typical toddler might be with all of that for the time being they've had to let go of their dream of owning a home we were trying to build our credit with the bank to get a better score because we were looking to buy a house I'm a little bit scared I don't see a whole lot changing we have a lot at the end of the month that's coming up so I met with Elizabeth to give her some hope and figure out what she can do first I just wanted to say thank you so much for doing this with me I so appreciate it can you tell me just a bit about your life what is the last year been like tell me about your family my husband and I we tried for eight years to have a child we finally got pregnant and we had our daughter about two months two or three months before the pandemic started can you talk to us a little bit about Gracie yeah um my daughter she'll be three in November when she was two years old she was diagnosed with non-verbal autism and that's kind of when our big Journey began is that a yum Yum Yum Yum it affects her whole system she needs special diets and a lot of what she needs is expensive go so it's very hard to do gluten-free when the bread is six dollars a loaf and you get one that's like this big you know the bread doesn't even fit in those sandwich Cutters I bought for her good job all done dietary restrictions and stuff has been really difficult with all of this inflation and it just keeps getting worse she is so blessed to have you and your husband as parents trying to save money where they can cutting back on entertainment subscriptions buying less expensive foods and not going out so much I think that's everything my first piece of advice know where your money's going and start by making a budget do you think you really know where all the money goes right now right now it's kind of like when the bill shows up we pay it I don't really have a plan to be honest we end up with two different photo storage so I got that one you can also save money on your household bills just by asking there's other programs that you could be eligible for whether it's subsidized Wi-Fi or more nutritional support other services when we look at your bills you might be able to talk to your utility company other things and potentially get a break we also tackled how they can emerge from bankruptcy stronger than before by starting to build back their credit we're going to wipe our slate clean we know our credit report is damaged what are we going to do to start cleaning it up you can get new accounts you can get what's known as a secure card and in a secure card you deposit money into a secure account and then you're going to get a credit card line that's 50 to 100 percent of the original deposit and if you can do this then you're going to move yourself up to get a more traditional credit card you also want to reach out to utility companies and you want to find out if those bills that you're paying every month and on time can show up on your credit report because our goal if our goal is to ultimately buy a home we need to put you in a position where you're improving that credit score so you want to be able to start showing a good track record and we talked about bouncing back in other ways saving money doesn't have to mean isolation I also want you to take care of yourself like I know this is super hard I know it is don't make me cry I know it is and it shouldn't be this hard all you're trying to do is take care of your family you and your husband it should not be this hard and um it's easy for me to say make a tighter budget but these are basic things and you just want to take care of your daughter in the best way that you can you're doing all the right things you are trying and we are going to try to give you the tools uh to make it happen even more okay thank you when we caught up with Elizabeth she was already heading in the right direction one of the things that has been helpful is just having an awareness of where my money is going so I started to pay a little more attention to our budget and our bank account just by watching what's on sale and going to two different stores instead of just one I was able to save money this week so like I saved about 25 which you know your times that by four that's 100 bucks a month that I could be saving if I keep up on this and actually with the money that I had saved I was able to get Grace one of her favorite brands of cereal ready to eat tell Mommy eat eat good job here's your breakfast Yum Yogurt and your favorite cereal her Research into a secured credit card turned up a surprising benefit we looked into um a security credit card and we found a couple that should fit our needs through researching the secured credit card we found a bank that was willing to refinance our car for a lower interest rate and a cheaper payment so that was great she's also saving money on her utilities as well I had applied for some assistance programs for the gas and the electric specifically and thankfully we are eligible for assistance on our gas bill we also checked into the utility companies and unfortunately while they weren't able to have our um bill being paid on time reported to the credit bureau they did give us suggestions about using one of those secured credit cards to pay our bill every month and then pay that card off and that would help our credit out as well despite what many call a return to normal the lingering effects of the pandemic are real and some of those who have been hardest hit are American teachers well in Philadelphia I met two teachers a family that are working hard but still facing serious challenges my name is Angel melee Anderson I live in Philadelphia Pennsylvania with my family I've been teaching for 17 years I'm making enough money to keep my head above water and that shouldn't be in this profession as groceries have gotten more expensive she's had to start using her credit card to pay for shopping I have this other credit card that I use for food shopping because I cannot go to the market and spend three hundred and four hundred dollars and give you my debit card but I had to do I have to do that now food prices are outrageous we have our chicken wings 1793 again store brand not name brand engine melee also has student loans to pay off plus fifteen thousand dollars in debt on One credit card with a high interest rate if I keep making the minimum payments in 30 short years I'll be finished I paid them Faithfully every month and I cannot wait to pay them all and one of the things that I would like to be able to do is double my payment to pay them off faster but I cannot do that now her husband has even taken up a side gig driving for a ride share company to bring in extra cash it helps to make ends meet and have a little extra so that we can do some things that we enjoy so we're not just working to pay bills but we're able to do some other things you know like we go out dinner go on vacation or anything like that so we sat down together to go over areas where she could be saving and strategizing well first I want to say I'm grateful for what you do one of the most important professions out there so thank you you've been in school for the last two weeks tell me a little bit about what the last few weeks have been like the last few weeks have been okay the students are coming to school everyone's there so it's been pretty good everyone's there everyone's healthy I want to talk about a certain part of your health tell me a little bit about your family's Financial Health well as you have already stated me and my husband were both teachers so you know we're not rolling in the money before I would go to the market I'd be able to use my debit card to pay for my groceries now I'm using a credit card because things are so high and things where we had a little savings that has dwindled dwindled down and we have like things we need to have repaired in the home but we really can't do that now one important Financial habit she already has an excellent credit score do you have credit card debt right now oh yes and I am a credit score fanatic good for you yes I guard it like I guard my children but I am carrying debt and that's not something that I do I'm gonna tell you I'm worried about that card with interest rates where they are and guess where they're headed up if you're only paying interest then we're never going to be paying these things down and we don't want you to be paying for groceries you ate last week a year from now amen in jamaele was already doing a great job at keeping her costs low but there's always ways to save more so I came up with some homework assignments to help her out my advice keep a spending Journal I want you to write down everything you're spending money on everything even though you think like you're keeping things really tight we could end up finding little places that you're spending you don't realize it and we can cut out okay so I don't want you to change your spending just write down everywhere that you're spending can you do that absolutely and we talked about tackling those credit cards with high interest rates there is nothing worse than just paying interest and end up paying late fees because you are just spending money on nothing like 2 me that's what kills me so that's what I want to really tackle one way to pay them off faster look for credit cards that offer promotions of low or even zero interest rates so you can transfer your most expensive debt and pay off more of that balance in jamaele had her work cut out for her with those homework assignments so a bit later I checked in to see how she was doing hey good to see you hello I love your T-shirt thank you the last time we talked I asked you to keep track of your spending a spending diary keep track of all your bills your credit card statements and just any expenses that are unaccounted for so what'd you find I have it all right here all right and you did it on the back of an envelope so you didn't even waste a new piece of paper nope did it right on the back of a bill I love it and when everything was totaled up in jamaele and her husband found out they have a little cash left over at the end of the month so together for the month we have about two thousand six hundred dollars but that does not take into account the credit card that I use for food that doesn't take into account the overpayment that I make on that so that I'm not carrying the fees but while she still has that big credit card debt to pay off engine melee says she's found a good credit card to transfer her debt 21 billing Cycles zero APR like if I transfer my balance love it do you think over 20 billing Cycles how much of that 15 grand could we hack away can we can we knock out I think you can knock out a lot yeah probably the 6363 worth of it I think you could knock out more if you have and I I'm not saying oh you have a thousand extra dollars a month but like if you've got even 500 bucks to play with like you got 20 billing Cycles you can get to 15 grand I know you can you will feel like such a free woman if you do I mean I will be totally liberated and we tried to figure out how to still put away those extra dollars into savings rather than you just have that thousand dollar Surplus whatever that number is I'd love for you to just consider if you have any goal it could be Christmas gifts it could be a couch it could be a trip anything you have in six months nine months a year put that money away if you just leave it it's going to disappear you are absolutely right and I think that that is you're speaking to my spirit right now Stephanie because I do want to go somewhere I do want to do something so you are definitely speaking to my spirit right now all right thank you for this opportunity um I hope you enjoyed it I hope it was helpful it was immensely well my best to you my best your husband your daughter your dog your whole family and thank you so much thank you Stephanie [Music] foreign [Music] 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Channel: NBC News

Views: 105,865

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Id: CAlVv9nA0iQ

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 30 2022