Operation HOPE is dedicated to providing financial education for people of all ages – starting with dedicated programs for students and young adults. For clients that are both adults and students like Kharisma, getting a handle of finances can be especially daunting.
Kharisma is incurring regular monthly living expenses but her full-time job – being a student – doesn’t cover all the bills. Here’s how Kharisma describes it: “I ended up shifting from a more dependent life to being independent where I was handling things financially alone. And then I was planning for my year in grad school. So, I was trying to make sure that I had a plan for how I was going to pay for grad school and how I was going to balance paying for things because I wasn’t going to be able to work,” Kharisma said.
Through Operation HOPE, Kharisma was matched with Financial Wellness Coach Charisse Flowers, who immediately put her at ease.
She shared, “The biggest hurdle before you can get financial help is to feel safe enough to be vulnerable about the challenges. Charisse did a really good job of letting me know that it was normal, the stuff that I was struggling with, and all of us are at different stages with our finances.”
For Kharisma and other young adults, “normal struggles” include creating good spending habits. With Charisse’s help, Kharisma identified spending patterns. By itemizing her monthly purchases, she was able to decide if it was an expense that she would keep or forgo. “I was able to eliminate things that I didn’t need or things that were taking money out of my pocket but weren’t necessary for me to do. I’m no longer looking at my bank account like, ‘where did all my money go?'” she said.
Making space in her budget has also meant that Kharisma was able to save and pay $400 outright for an emergency expense—something that puts many individuals into high-interest debt. She’s also more discerning about purchasing things that she values and will use. For example, paying $20 per month for an unused Planet Fitness membership was replaced by a more expensive gym that she visits regularly.
Lessons from Operation HOPE’s credit-building workshop also stuck with Kharisma. Free access to her credit report on Annual Credit Report.com means that Kharisma could track her score against her goals. Charisse’s advice on improving her credit score included paying all her bills on time and using a strategy called “snowballing,” where you pay off the smallest of all your loans as quickly as possible. Charisse told Kharisma that small money moves can add up relatively quickly to improve your score. “When you’re paying on time and when you’re snowballing at the same time, you’re attacking your credit score from both ends,” said Kharisma. Adding, “I didn’t know that there were so many small things that I could do to improve my credit.”
Kharisma encourages others to seek out Operation HOPE, especially if they’re financial novices. “I didn’t feel like I had to have a lot of money or extensive knowledge or had to already be investing to get something out of it. I think it’s actually made for beginners who are really struggling because the coach aspect is so inviting.” On the coach aspect, Kharisma appreciated that Charisse was a person of color like her, and they bonded over shared experiences.
“They’re [Operation HOPE is] really awesome. And the biggest thing is that they were really dedicated to you achieving your goals and your success. And it’s so crazy to realize that it’s a free program,” she said.
Charisse said of Kharisma, “It was a pleasure to see her confidence grow in herself and her capabilities; It’s even more exciting to see the impact from the work she’s been doing since the close of the program.”
Having tamed her spending as a student, Kharisma is confident that she can bring the financial lessons she learned from Operation HOPE in her new job as a teacher. “Operation HOPE changes your relationship to money and how you perceive it and it doesn’t become as scary or as daunting. And that’s a point that they kept stressing – regardless of how much you make, there’s foundational rules that can stabilize you. So even though I’ll be making a lot more money, that doesn’t mean I have to live beyond the means that make me comfortable,” she said.
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