It is a real-life, real-time challenge for even the smartest person. Financial literacy—knowing how to spend, save or invest your money— can change the course of an entire lifetime. Having it, financial literacy, can help navigate through life or life’s challenges with only minor course corrections or spending it forever making course corrections to simply stay afloat.
Thanks to a $502,000 grant from the Colorado Attorney General’s office, a slice of Puebloans will have the opportunity to learn or improve their financial literacy.
“It’s a two-year grant to help us in our infancy to pay for personnel, marketing materials, brochures, things like that,” said Haley Sue Robinson, Pueblo’s Director of the Office of Public Affairs. The materials, along with licensed financial planners, will help Puebloans who already have a basic understanding of personal finances and help others either just starting out or have only a basic working knowledge of this lifelong issue.
Pueblo’s Financial Empowerment Center opened its doors last fall. It is built on a blueprint similar to agencies in more than two dozen cities across the nation, including Denver, said Robinson.
Puebloans will be able to visit any of six different locations spread across the city to sit and consult with certified financial planners. To date, more than three dozen Puebloans have taken advantage of the no-cost services.
Robinson said the information provided at each center can be a huge benefit for a whole swath of people. It can be beneficial to anyone from a high school or college student needing to know how to open their first checking account, apply for a scholarship, pay down student debt, establish and build credit or simply learn the ABC’s of buying a first home.
The information gleaned in a visit, she said, is so often among those things “not talked about in your home when you were growing up.” Also, because it is “one-on-one coaching,” there is no peer pressure that might make asking questions in front of others uncomfortable.
The counselling also covers financial issues that, perhaps, are a bit more pressing. Last month, said Haley, a ‘fines and fees’ session was created to help individuals with municipal court issues. “If they sign up with a coach, they can have a fine reduced by half…but they have to meet session requirements.”
Information on starting a checking account, one of the services offered in the Pueblo office, might seem obvious. But the reality is that there are more than seven million Americans who don’t have one. It is a group called “the unbanked.” In Pueblo, about five percent of adults have no checking account, a figure slightly higher than the national average.
There are a number of reasons why this group, the unbanked, conducts its life on a ‘cash-only’ basis, said the General Accounting Office. The overwhelming number of individuals falling into this category, said the GAO, are people who are poorly educated, low-income and members of minority groups, including many undocumented or new citizens. Money orders and pre-paid debit cards are often the most convenient fall backs in this group.
A result of being ‘unbanked’ also means using more expensive financial services like check-cashing and payday loan businesses. Other reasons for living in this condition include not qualifying for an account, inconvenience of banking hours, distrust of the institutions and high or unpredictable fees, including overdraft penalties.
The Pueblo Empowerment Financial Center has six locations across the city and Robinson said encourages individuals or families to consider making a visit. It costs nothing, she said, and may be a lifeline for those who may find themselves in a moment of financial uncertainty.
Feedback from those who have made the visit to the city’s FEC has been overwhelmingly positive. However, you will need to make an appointment. The number is 719.225.8580 or you can visit pueblounitedway.org/fec.
