Past Team Takeaways Apply to Your Future

The Gants:

The online Balance courses taught me so much. I revisit certain lessons from time to time to make sure that I am on the right path. The worksheets and approximation calculators that are available through the courses are an essential tool for anyone traveling the road to financial freedom, homeownership, car ownership, etc.

My most favorite tool, however, is the Money Management tool located in Pen Air online banking. For me, filling out all the paperwork, worksheets, and charts in the world didn’t quite put everything into perspective like the visualization that is offered from this tool.

The Millers:

Refinancing our home to a lower interest rate and we opened a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) with Pen Air that we used to pay off Brett’s student loan – the interest rate reduction on both bills will save us about $250 a month combined.

The Patronis:

We decided to try “cash budgeting” for groceries, eating out, and shopping (our problem areas). We set a limit for each category per month and withdraw half of this amount each paycheck.

For example, with groceries, we decided on a $600 a month budget. I would take out $300 for the first half of the month and then the other $300 out when we got paid again. This has really helped us to actually see how much money we spent vs. how much we have left.

On average, our participating 2020 NOW Teams saved $12,381 and decreased their debt by $16,043.

The Mansons:

Our proudest moment of the program was working as a family on our spending habits. By merging our finances, we became self-aware of what we were doing wrong and where we were spending our money. By working with their NOW Advisor and leveraging the products and services Pen Air offers, we were able to increase our savings by 15% over seven months.

The Riders:

We had quite a bit of damage to our home from Hurricane Sally back in 2020, and as a result had to use a large portion of our Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) for repairs. Between the HELOC and our mortgage, we were paying roughly $1200 a month in payments, and were going to be paying over $65,000 in interest of the life of those two loans. As a team, we were able to refinance our mortgage, wrap in the HELOC debt, take 7 years off the life of our mortgage, AND save over $35,000 in interest! All with relatively no changes to our monthly budget!

The Wootons:

We learned a lot over the course of the program, about our spending habits and about planning for the future. Our primary goal was to save for retirement. We were able to increase our 401k contributions by 23% or around $13,000 just in 7 months! Needless to say, we’re looking forward to taking the lessons we learned with us and applying it moving forward.

On average, the 2021 NOW Teams increased their savings by $14,000 and decreased their debt by $8,000.

NOW’s your chance to take control of your financial future and apply for the 2022 NOW Program. Selected NOW Teams will be paired with a certified financial counselor, or NOW Advisors, who will provide a personalized game plan and resources, helping each team pay off debt and plan for a financially stable future.