When I was 16, I got my first job.
I took one Consumer Economics class in high school.
My parents signed me up for my first credit card when I was 17, just in case for emergencies. (Which I maxed out in two years–and part of the purchasing there was to get a tattoo.)
Aaand that’s about the gist of my financial education that happened over the course of two years before I went off on my own to live 5 1/2 hours away from my parents to ‘figure it out’.
In that time I’ve been really bad with money.
When I moved to St. Louis, Missouri for college roughly 12 years ago, I blindly accepted the $XX,XXX amount of debt I would be in post-graduation, emptied the $92 out of my savings account to afford the gas for the drive to school from Northern Illinois, and somehow magically got a job waiting tables the night before I moved on to campus.
Most of my days/nights in college consisted of completing any course work I had put off until the last minute, worked my part time job at a restaurant, another 10 hours a week working for the school to pay for room/board, and then waking up in the middle of the night with complete anxiety about how I was going to pay for things.
And I just assumed this was how it always was going to be, for the record. I figured this is how adults lived. Sans the lucky few who made it big with a great invention (at that time I was told the Snuggy was made on a college campus and made some dude REALLY rich) or were lucky enough to be born into wealth.
At one point I thought I was going to have to drop out of college because of some error with the finance department, to which I received a letter stating if the college did not have $6,000 I owed by the end of the week, I would no longer be able to attend the university.
“It’s okay,” I remember telling my mom, “I’ll be able to come back home and help you.”
I was sobbing. Why was something as small/big as money getting in the way?
It wasn’t until I reflect on writing that now, that I realized I was just a kid who didn’t know how to properly figure out the financial part of something as big/small as my school finances. I always just operated on luck.
And look, aside from the MESSED UP SYSTEM that creates this unrealistic expectation for high school kids to riddle themselves with crushing debt (different topic), it’s safe to say I have never had a financial plan or felt remotely financially secure.
Fast forward to 2020.
Since that time, I graduated from said university with two B.A. degrees in Communications and Digital Cinema Arts, worked for a non-profit, and attempted living on the road with the Renaissance Faire.
I have a three-year old wacky boy, George, who I had while I was traveling and I came back to St. Louis in hopes of finding better stability for ourselves.
Now, I work at a credit union. A financial institution that believes in people helping people. I’m in their marketing department, creating content in the form of blog posts, social media, videos, photography, etc. I’ve been there for three years so far, and every day I’m talking with financial professionals about how we can make other people’s lives better by improving their finances.
What I’ll bring to the table.
I’m a content creator, which means I’m constantly researching the latest updates on the economy, speaking with financial professionals about what they know, and sharing all of that in the form of blog posts, videos, and more.
You can read what I’ve been writing for Together Credit Union here: http://howdoyoucu.togethercu.org/
And you can see my face appearing on Together CU’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCozUaXXzHIFv-L830JhvyVg
I’ll share as much as I can. And if you have a questions about finances, let me know at kimkaporis@gmail.com.