The New Year’s Buzz

Enjoy this great post from Marisa. Happy New Year! ~Chapin

I’ve got it. I’ve got the New Year’s buzz, when you feel like you have a fresh start. You can be the person you have always wanted to be. Those extra pounds are gonna be a distant memory, that long put-off adventure is really around the corner, that time that you promised yourself you’d make a difference in the community is NOT gonna  be spent watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother on the coach. It’s a New Year. Anything is possible.

To start my New Year off right, I followed through on a promise to a friend to make a loan through Kiva, and my loan will help a gentleman buy new tires for the car he uses to provide taxi service in his central European country. The fact that I got matched with him made me smile because I am such a fan of the Financial Empowerment programs we run at Peninsula Family Service. I can talk to a Ways to Work client in our programs and find out how the small loan we provided through our organization helped a family get a car and changed their lives. As I pushed the final button to confirm the transaction, it reminded me that the needs of people around the world are often the same. Microfinance programs are important around the world. I feel really lucky that I can work for an organization that helps change lives and empower people.

Next on my list is to figure out to give more to my community in terms of time. I’ve run out of re-runs, but I also have a feeling I could find something better to do with myself. I know we are always recruiting for our Senior Peer Counseling Program, which offers support and information to older adults in San Mateo County. I love that program! Coming from a small town, I really believe you need to band together when times are tough or someone is having a problem. While I’m a little too young to volunteer for that (you have to be 50 or older), I’m always impressed by the things I hear. One of our volunteers told me that he was experiencing his community MORE because of the things he and his client do, such as going for walks in parks. I hope I find a volunteer experience that is just as positive.

So, while I’m plotting my activities, I’d like to know what you are planning to do with your New Year. E-mail me at mbinder@peninsulafamilyservice.org and let me know what is inspiring you!

For more information about our programs, please contact info@peninsulafamilyservice.org or call 650-403-4300.

After the Turkey…

Thanks to my colleague Marisa for writing today’s blog! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! ~Chapin

Ok, I admit it. I ate too much turkey on Thanksgiving. Not too much in a Wow-I’ll-Skip-the-Next-Meal sort of way but too much in an Oh-My-Gosh-I-Don’t-Know-If-I’ll-Ever-Move-Again, Get-That-Food-Away-From-Me sort of way. As you can imagine, I spent a fair amount of time sitting/lying down on Thursday, which gave me a chance to think. Normally, I just run through my checklists of what I need to do for the day and week, but this time, as I rolled around with my distended stomach, I had a chance to ponder life and times…and turkey. Let’s face it, I wasn’t going to be going anywhere quickly. You have time for these sorts of things when you can’t move.

So, back to turkey. Thankfully, I didn’t have to cook this year (thank you, Friends!), but I did do a lot of observing of turkey. Those suckers are big! They are also heavy. You could do some serious damage to your toes if you dropped one. (Yes, deep thoughts, I know.) Anyway, that got me thinking, how would I have gotten a turkey home for my family if I didn’t have a car? This is not an improbable situation. For many years, I didn’t need one. As a college student, I lived close enough to my school and to work to walk everywhere. My weekly grocery shopping was a little limited because I could only buy what I could carry, and luckily, that never had to include a turkey. If I were really in need, I could often find a friend with a vehicle, but I knew better than to ask for favors or someone’s time during busy periods, like exams. In real life, that would probably translate to holidays. So, what if I needed to get a large turkey home, along with other groceries? Let’s make it even more complicated…what if I had to do all that with little children?

Now, even though I’ve been out of college for a few years, taxis are still a luxury in my eyes. So, scratch the taxi idea. There are buses and bikes, so they might be options. There is also the possibility of walking, but I don’t have a grocery store close to my home. I imagine I’d be trying to roll the thing down the street after the first two miles of carrying it. In that case, those imaginary kids of mine had better be ready to walk and help by their first Thanksgiving. Needless to say, none of these images led to a warm, happy family meal when I thought them through. I finally came to the conclusion that a car of some sort would really be the easiest way to get my imaginary turkey and imaginary children home safely.

As hard as I tried to avoid this, my deep thoughts led me into pondering my job. On the plus side, I didn’t automatically jump to my checklist of projects. Instead, it was back to the car idea. How would I obtain this car for my imaginary family? The first thing I thought of was our Ways to Work program, which offers low-interest car loans of up to $6,000 at a fixed interest rate of 8% over 30 months or less to parents of dependent children. I’d just been talking to one of our Ways to Work clients last week about her car and how it had helped give her more time with her three children. As someone who works full-time, has kids in three different schools and is attending classes for her Bachelor’s degree, time is a pretty precious commodity for Regina. (Read more about Regina’s story in our Winter 2011 newsletter.) Hmmm, I thought, a car would DEFINITELY give me more time than would my multi-mile turkey roll.

The thought of a car also got me onto the topic of travel. I once heard that Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday for travel. Nationally, AAA projected a total of 42.5 million travelers this Thanksgiving. For me, growing up in a rural area, I either drive 10 hours to get to my family or have to fly and then drive 2.5 hours. Only recently was a shuttle route started. For the majority of my life away from home, I would have been stuck in limbo had my parents or their friends not been willing to claim me at the airport hours from home. So really, a car would not only be necessary for helping me avoid a very mashed, bruised, road rash turkey, it really has to come into play if I want to see my parents. Now that I have a car, I often take my ability to see them for granted.

As much as I love trains, long walks and biking, a car makes a huge difference in my life, even when my imaginary children aren’t expecting that imaginary turkey at Thanksgiving. I know that, for the people who participate in Ways to Work, a car often helps them avoid work absences and tardiness, and perhaps most importantly, gives them more time with family. As I looked past my stomach to survey my wonderful friends—my San Francisco family— I decided to add an extra, silent thanks for a job which allows me to help others through programs like Ways to Work. Pretty cool.

For more information on Ways to Work, please contact info@peninsulafamilyservice.org or call 650-403-4300.

How to Live Like a Queen at 95

Felicia at one of her Start2Save classes

To most of us in our twenties, retirement isn’t a word in our day to day vocabulary. Sure, I always hear that it’s never too early to start saving for retirement, and I’ve always deposited into my work’s retirement plan… but that’s all I do. I don’t know how much is in my Fidelity Account. I know I get an email monthly telling me my account statement is ready… and that’s about it.

But when I learned that this week is National Save for Retirement Week, and heard that Peninsula Family Service has a program called Start2Save that helps with beefing up your emergency savings account, I decided to learn a little bit more about the program and what I could potentially do to jumpstart my own savings – for emergencies and for retirement.

Start2Save is a combination of classes, resources, and even a deposit of $1,000 into your emergency savings account. And it’s all free. I thought it was too good to be true, so I asked Felicia, a participant in the program, to tell me about her experience.

Felicia told me that she’s been putting $50 in her savings account each month since May – and come April, when she graduates from the program – a group called Opportunity Fund will deposit $1,000 into her account. I was excited about that – who doesn’t like free money? She took some classes about savings, budgeting, and investment. She’s come out of the classes a new woman.

Felicia has stopped eating out so much to save money. She also has significantly decreased the number of payday loans she takes out. I don’t know anything about payday loans, so Felicia explained to me that you need to pay $45 within 15 days of taking one out – so just saving $50 each month at the start more than makes up for multiple loans.

I asked Felicia what she learned from the program. “Discipline,” she said. “Before, I was living beyond my means. Now I stick to my budget.” With this new emergency savings account, Felicia can feel confident about moving forward with saving for retirement. She even has a side business she is starting, outside of the regular workday. With the money from her business, she hopes to give back. “If I make more money, I can help more people,” she said.

All this talk about saving for retirement made me curious about my own future. In my online research I stumbled upon the AARP Retirement Calculator (you can check it out here). I’m in my late twenties now and not married. If I continue saving at the rate I am (basically putting away my birthday money each year plus the Fidelity stuff), I won’t be able to retire until I’m 78! If I want to retire by the time I’m 67, I should be saving $3,400 each year. That’s a lot more than I get for my birthday, that’s for sure. It was very enlightening. Something needs to change, whether I spend less on food or make more with a side job. Felicia was lucky that she had Start2Save to help her along the way.

I’m happy National Save for Retirement Week exists – I know I’m taking this week to look at my finances and think about how I can save for the future. I read one statistic that I found interesting, and true in my case: outside of employer-sponsored plans, employees save virtually nothing. Doesn’t sound like the best way to get ready for life after retirement, does it?