Context: due to having uterine cancer, plus a blood clot in my leg, when I was uninsured/uninsurable for pre-existing conditions (right before Obamacare kicked in), and having goodhearted physicians who saved my life by treating me anyway--rules be damned!--my net worth is now approximately a negative quarter of a million dollars. I found that fact out when I did a net worth analysis for the entrepreneurship program at the Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship (CIE). I had been avoiding knowing the number, because reality. Thats the background, then. I want to thank everyone who IM-ed me or phoned me to tell me they were or had been in similar situations, and to encourage me that its possible to break out. I will never out anyones financial situation that they told me about privately, so well just let this thanks be generic--you know who you are. However, one person who had been left holding the bag by a business partner has recovered and thrived after being $4 million underwater, so it is, indeed, possible. So my mentor at the CIE suggested I do my business banking at Express Credit Union, because they specifically have a mission of helping people with shaky finances get on more solid ground. Heres the thing: the credit repair business is full of predators, and you seriously have to watch out for that. A lot of people who say they want to help you get back on your feet really want only to line their pockets at your expense, and theres not very much stopping them from it. So, caveat emptor. Having said that, I went to SoDo and checked out Express yesterday. So far, so good--I have seen no red or yellow flags that indicate that they are anything other than what their mission statement, and my mentor Julie, says they are. Of course, I will keep watching out, because caveat emptor never sleeps, but I am not expecting this to go pear-shaped. So far, they seem to be exactly what they claim they are, and I think they are going to provide exactly the support I need to get unstuck. I have to shake this guilty feeling, though, that my availing myself of this resource is chutzpah on the order of when Queen Elizabeth tried to dip into the poverty grants program to use the money to heat Buckingham Palace. Understandably, her advisers nipped that in the bud, because they understand the optics (if not the ethics) of it. Yes, there was a time when I earned tons of money. That was before I got sick. Im now well, thanks to a lot of good people, and I am also a quarter of a million dollars underwater, as a result. Its ok to admit I need help and to ask for it, and its ok to use community programs to get to a point later on, where Ill be able to support those very programs as they help those who come after me. expresscu.org/about-us/
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 14:45:29 +0000
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