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Parents' Place helps you pinch pennies

Did holiday gift purchases make too much of a dent in your wallet? Were you hoping for a year-end bonus or raise that never came? Do you find the new calendar year makes you always leap ahead to when income taxes are due? We’re all in the same

Did holiday gift purchases make too much of a dent in your wallet? Were you hoping for a year-end bonus or raise that never came? Do you find the new calendar year makes you always leap ahead to when income taxes are due?

We’re all in the same boat, says independent financial educator Heather Bereska, and you don’t have to panic. Just don’t sweep it under your mental carpet like so many people often do.

She will be leading a series of financial help workshops sponsored by St. Albert Parents’ Place and the Salvation Army. All she wants to do is help people to get a handle on their cash.

“It just comes and goes in terms of [finances] being a really important thing and then it getting shuffled to the wayside,” she said about how she sees many people approach their money management. “I’ve been in the industry for four and a half years and it’s always puzzled me.”

“What I find, just day-to-day, is that most people struggle with their finances,” she said, adding how her students have taken the all-important first big step. “It’s just that these guys are brave enough to try and get help with it.”

The bi-weekly sessions will be compiled from various resources including financial courses she has taken and other sources of information to which she has access. Topics will run the gamut from budgeting and planning for retirement. She has one session devoted to investment basics including what she calls “some of the myths and untold truths about the industry.”

“It’s such a confusing, overwhelming area that most people have never really learned about.”

It’s all geared towards people who struggle more with their money though. Participants must first be qualified before they can attend any of the sessions.

“Ever since the downturn in the economy, I haven’t seen a lot of people changing their habits with spending unless they were really negatively affected with a layoff.”

Bereska promises the information will be simple and straightforward but she won’t allow you to be a passive observer. There will be homework.

“People just don’t know where to turn. They have no idea. They don’t know who to believe and as a result they try to do things on their own, which is probably the worst thing they could do.”

Joyce Charlton is the community outreach co-ordinator at Parents’ Place. She has high hopes these workshops will help her clients in the rental assistance program.

“We create goals and we create an exit strategy so when they’re complete with that program and their contract is finished, we hope that we’ve put some things in place to help them better manage their finances and not need us.”

Call 780-459-7377 or visit www.stalbertparentsplace.com for more information. The first session ran last night. The other three sessions take place Jan. 25, Feb. 8 and Feb. 22.

Parents’ Place is located at Suite 10A, 215 Carnegie Dr. in the adjoining office of the Community Information and Volunteer Centre.

If you want to contact Bereska directly, please call 780-498-0235.


Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

About the Author: Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Ecology and Environment Reporter at the Fitzhugh Newspaper since July 2022 under Local Journalism Initiative funding provided by News Media Canada.
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