April marks Monetary Literacy Month, however we on the Division of Shopper and Employee Safety (DCWP) additionally wish to name it Monetary Empowerment Month. Whereas monetary literacy – understanding easy methods to save, spend, and finances – is essential, being empowered to make your funds give you the results you want is simply as necessary for main a financially wholesome life. It’s estimated that these avoidable errors resulting from a scarcity of monetary schooling value Individuals a mean of greater than $1,500 annually, and as the price of dwelling continues to extend, an increasing number of households throughout the nation and in our metropolis are struggling to make ends meet. However New Yorkers do not need to face this problem alone.
NYC Monetary Empowerment Facilities – situated throughout the 5 boroughs – supply FREE {and professional} one-on-one monetary counseling to assist New Yorkers attain their objectives and profit from their cash. Since 2008, our Monetary Empowerment Facilities have helped tens of 1000’s of New Yorkers cut back their debt by greater than $114 million and enhance their financial savings by greater than $13 million.
As a shopper myself, I can personally attest to how lifechanging receiving monetary empowerment providers might be for a household. My counselor guided me by my household’s earnings and bills, and helped us create a finances and spending plan that labored for us. She additionally helped me submit my software for Public Service Mortgage Forgiveness, which lifted 1000’s of {dollars} of debt off my shoulders. Whereas my scholar loans could have been forgiven, I’ll at all times owe my monetary counselor a debt of gratitude for serving to me get my monetary well being on observe. Eliminating that debt and straightening out my household’s funds has given me more room to deal with instructing my very own youngsters about easy methods to develop into being financially wholesome adults.
My daughter began highschool this yr, which made me notice how necessary it’s to have trustworthy and direct conversations about cash with our kids now, whereas they’re nonetheless younger sufficient to be taught from us and keep away from the monetary errors we made in our youth. So, our crew set to work. As introduced in Mayor Eric Adams’ fourth State of the Metropolis deal with, working along with NYC Public Colleges, we’ll launch an formidable method to present youngsters the instruments and sources they should be taught the ins and outs of funds. From multi-generational workshops to an In-Faculty Baking pilot program, we’ll lay the inspiration for a lifetime of fine monetary well being for all public college college students.
Our crew at DCWP works exhausting each day to make this metropolis extra inexpensive and guarantee working-class New Yorkers usually are not solely supported however empowered. Make the most of these crucial, free sources – they will change your life. Name 311 or go to nyc.gov/TalkMoney to make an appointment at a NYC Monetary Empowerment Heart immediately.
Vilda Vera Mayuga is the Commissioner for the NYC Division of Shopper and Employee Safety (DCWP). Be taught extra in regards to the metropolis’s monetary empowerment providers at nyc.gov/TalkMoney.
