Financial planning makes all the difference

My name is Belinda Staten-Branch. I work for the City of Durham. I'm the administrative coordinator for the City of Durham Solid Waste Department and I've been with the city for 25 years. I'm a proud city employee. I'm a proud Durhamite and Durham is a really good place to be. My grandparents instilled in me a long time ago about debt and how debt is the make or break with a lot of things that you may want to do in the future. Perhaps buy a car. Own a home. Have multiple accounts because you never know what's going to happen. You never know what kind of emergencies you may have, what kind of rainy day events may happen, or you may just want to eventually treat yourself to something nice. Having a new financial plan for me allows me the opportunity to do some things that I had on my wish list, some things that I had on my vision board. Currently, I am in school again working on another degree, and I had a few books this semester that came up unexpectedly. And so this allowed me not to take out a loan or educational loan, but I knew I had this account that was sitting over to the side for me. And so the only way you can do that is if you have something saved up. You don't have to always charge or take out a loan to have a nice time but just save. I feel very positive about my financial future. I feel so positive to the point where I'm going to keep this up as long as I can.