Welcome to my blog, “Try Wise Budgeting with Donna”! It opens new doors and friendships with others in the same situation or maybe even worse. This is the place you will learn that it is our choices in life that lead us to the outcomes that come about. If you have made bad ones, Wise Budgeting can help turn things around.
You Are Not Alone!
Perhaps you are wondering how you got yourself in such a predicament financially. Well, I am here to tell you that it is not your fault. Society itself is to blame.. Money for many of us was a taboo subject in many households. Children often grew up thinking about how their family had it all and had no financial worries.
Then we grow up…
Well, This is My Story…
I am Donna Beals, founder of “Try Wise Budgeting with Donna”.
I had been out of high school a year or two and working with my stepdad at his place of business. One afternoon on the way home I asked him, “How does one go about getting good credit?”
It was then he pulled into the Rockland Trust where our family banked, and he got out and went in to talk to the bank manager.
He then came out and got me, the bank manager had me fill out paperwork and I got a personal loan of $200. I was to hold onto it and after a month when I got my first statement I was to pay it back and they would send me my first credit card. To maintain good credit, all I had to do is never go over the $200 limit and pay it off every month I got the statement. It all sounded quite easy. I was doing well. Then I started getting mail from credit card companies inviting me to apply for their cards. At one point I had over 12 cards and realized I was over my head.
This was the first of three times I would stumble, each time deeper and deeper. I decided to go talk to the Branch Manager, Sandy Ellis, of the Rockland Credit Union where I had automatic savings taken out of my payroll every week and ask for a personal loan of $5,000.00.
Well, when she called and told me I had been approved I was elated. But one thing stuck in my mind, as she handed me the check, she warned me – “be careful, you will probably be back again for another loan.”
Three years later, I was back at the mercy of my credit cards. This time my stepdad gave me a loan that I had to pay back, as I was declined by the bank for another personal loan. It was October of 1989, I realized I needed to do something to get him paid off – so I talked to my mother and we went to a local restaurant in the Mall seeking wait staff. Their I applied for a part-time job as a waitress.
I got him paid off within the first month and decided to stay on through Christmas. Well, it has been a long Christmas season – I am still there thirty years later, two nights a week.
Then in December of 2007, I stumbled head over heels one more time in debt. I remember getting calls of the threatening nature and feeling scared, little did I know at that time they were just crank calls to try to get my information. I remember emailing my youngest sister I was scared and telling her if anything happened to me, I wanted her to let everyone know I loved them. Then I proceeded to work.
It was the end of January 2008 and it was a snowy morning work that had been delayed starting at noon. I was out shoveling, and my stepdad came out to join me. He sat on the wall and said how my sister came and showed me the note a week before I had sent her and how it upset her. At that moment he asked me “Are you involved with loan sharks?”
I was quick to respond, “No!” And then he told me a story of how my dad got involved with them and how he had to leave mom, my sister and me to protect us. How one can never go back home or have any connection with family again.
This scared me!
That night I took his advice and decided to get all my financials in order. It was quite an undertaking. Suddenly I realized I was in a state of loss, as I organized my debt and income into categories and set up a plan to get all paid up. A year later as I sat getting ready to do my taxes I realized, I had achieved my goal!
Now, could I do it all again?
I took the next year and documented my progress and steps to financial success; and yes – I had done it another year. Another five years, and I was still seeing my finances improve. I called my progress an “Alpha-Omega Advantage” and in the fall of 2015, I decided to start a small meetup group on Tuesday evenings from 7-9 pm in the local Panera Bread.
I started 2-3 blogs, but they kept changing – then I found Wealthy Affiliate and decided to get serious on helping others struggling financially and here I am today with my latest blog, Try Wise Budgeting with Donna, helping unveil the secret to financial success that was never before talked about in our families.
Do you know what that secret is I realized?
Join our community and learn the secret that was never talked about in years past. The secret that can help brighten your future.
Won’t you give it a try TODAY?
