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Home > In The News 1. "Making
ends meet" by Maria Coole, Lancaster Sunday News It used to be that keeping up with the Joneses meant you were comparing your finances and acquisitions to your neighbors. "We're still keeping up with the Joneses," says Michael Sprunger, Director of Consumer Credit Counseling Services at Tabor Community Services, "but the Joneses don't live next door; they live on TV." People look at sitcoms, he said,
and see a lifestyle that only happens in TV-land; someone has a
$5 an hour job and lives in an apartment overlooking San Francisco
with a leather couch and designer décor. For some people, exposure to
this kind of unrealistic lifestyle has developed an attitude of
"I will attain it even if it breaks me," he says. "I
never thought we'd get to the point of saying turn off the show
and watch the advertisements instead." If you've been bitten by this
break-the-budget bug, you might want to take steps to get control
of impulse shopping. "The first thing, the most
important thing, is people need to do the math and find out what
it is they can afford, based on where they are now and where they
want to be in the future. They need to get away from thinking about
what everyone else has and thinking about what they have,"
Sprunger says."One thing I recommend people do is put as much
distance between their money and the impulse to spend. You can get
a credit card and a MAC card, but keep them at home." If you see something you want
to buy at the mall, go home and get the card. You might still end
up buying it, but that gives you time to think about it, and you
might decide it's not worth it to go back. A tip for someone who has a serious problem with impulse shopping with a credit card, Sprunger said, is to put the card in a margarine tub of water and freeze the tub. To get the card, you have to thaw it. And you can't put it in the microwave to speed it up, or you may destroy the card. Of all forms of payment a person can carry, Sprunger recommends carrying a check book. You have to write down the numbers when you write a check, he said, but with a credit card or a MAC, you don't pay as much attention to the numbers. Bob Thee, Penn State extension agent in housing and resource management, suggests looking at long-term and short-term goals and developing a spending plan. "The way I like to look at a spending plan is that it is your road map as to how you are going to achieve your financial goals." Savings is one way to meet goals. In savings, Thee says, the rule is you pay yourself first. "An automatic deduction or transfer from your paycheck into savings is the best way, so that you never see it," he says. If you wait to see what you have in your pocket at the end of the month, then nothing will be put into savings, he says. Sprunger finds it interesting that as much as Americans seek status, they find the discussion of income and how they spend it taboo. "Finances are America's last great secret. We know just about everything about people except what they earn and how they spend it," he says. (By Maria Coole, excerpts from the article in the Lancaster Sunday News, February 21, 1999) Back to top Dead-end lives of addicts once
haunted 450 E. King St., but now a community service firm is using
the home to build bridges. In April, the first clients of Jubilee
Homes at King will walk into a transitional home there and, hopefully,
into a new life. "But this is not a free
ride," said Kay Moshier McDivitt of Tabor Community Services.
"What we're doing is providing a two-year window of opportunity
for these women." The five apartments of Jubilee
House will be rented by women who have completed a drug or alcohol
rehabilitation program but are homeless. Tabor will focus on women
with children, but one of the apartments, a one-bedroom efficiency,
could be used by a woman with a baby, McDivitt said. Tabor has been helping local
residents with housing and financial problems for more than 30 years,
but this is the first time the organization actually owns the property
that will house the clients. Located across the street from
Tabor's offices, the building has been home to about 10 people in
the last few years who have run afoul of the law, some for drug
offenses. Tabor bought the building in 1998 for $75,000, according
to newspaper records. The next step was to make the
building respectable after years of neglect. Judy and Paul Martin
of Ephrata have worked for free since August, making war on rotted
floors, broken windows and filth. "I had the vision of what
it could look like. I could see the potential," Judy said as
she stood in the first floor apartment, mop in hand. The apartments have become residences that would make anyone proud.
Back to top Patricia remembers walking into Tabor Community Services several years ago, hoping to learn about a program to help homebuyers with closing costs. "I had this great idea
that I could buy a house. I was ready," Patricia said. "When
I went there, I did not suspect my credit cards would be a problem
for me." The half-dozen cards with more
than $7,000 in unpaid balances were, however, a problem. Tabor worked out a plan for
Patricia to pay off her debt and enrolled her in a state sponsored
savings program and classes to help low-income families learn about
budgeting. On Tuesday, at age 44, Patricia
bought her first home. In addition to paying offer her credit cards,
she put $1,000 down on the house. Hill also saved $1,200 in the
Family Savings Account plan, qualifying her for $600 in matching
funds from the government. She plans to use that money to buy her
first car - just as soon as she learns to drive. "I grew up on welfare,"
said Patricia, who moved here from Chester about seven years ago
while recovering from a drug addiction. "This is like an accomplishment
that overwhelms me. It wasn't easy, but it happened.
And that's the best part. It happened," said Hill, who will
live at her new home with husband Victor, whom she married last
year, and 10 year old grandson, Rashee. "I'm just grateful
for all the people who put in their time and effort." In August 1998, Patricia had
enrolled in the Family savings Account program at Tabor, which offers
to match 50 cents on the dollar for people who save $1,200 over
18 months. The money must be used for a specific purpose, such as
to help buy a home or car or pay for education. Patricia needed to have $1,000
on hand as a down payment for the house - that's in addition to
her $1,200 in FSA savings earmarked for a car. "Juggling the money was hard for us this year," she acknowledged. "I'm really just overwhelmed with gratitude." (By Stephen Trapnell, excerpts from Lancaster New Era, June 5, 2000) |
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