Financing Your Future – Excerpt From The Financial Shepherd

Dr. Timisha Barnes-Jones and the Small Victories of West Charlotte High


“Everybody wants happiness, nobody wants pain, but you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain. “

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We’ve all heard this aphorism at one point or another. Perhaps it’s so popular because it speaks to the universal truth of balancing the good and the bad. This is the case for West Charlotte High School. In the past, West Charlotte has seen a few rainbows and a lot of rain, but recently, the ratio has evened. Dr. Timisha Barnes-Jones is one of the forces behind this school’s blooming rainbow.

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Charlotte’s Changing Neighborhoods, Enduring Pride

Breweries, expensive housing, coffee shops, and galleries— all signs point to gentrification in the low-income communities that surround uptown.  Much has already been said about the changing faces of Cherry, Optimist Park, and Washington Heights. Soon Druid Hills will join the ranks of the gentrified. Druid Hills is a small, quaint neighborhood with craftsman-style homes, active churches, and a K-8 public school. With its unique identity in mind, Druid Hills hopes to maintain its pride and culture as it’s done in previous hard times.

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50 out of 50: Social Mobility in Charlotte

To some, Charlotte is a city that metaphorically pulled itself up by its bootstraps. Despite the economic and social upheaval brought on by the Civil War, Charlotte continued as a leading city for finance and the textile industry throughout the 20th century. After the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation in the 1970s, Charlotte grew exponentially in both population and diversity: from 1980 to 2014, the population more than doubled, and the percentage of people of color in Mecklenburg County rose from 24 to 52 percent, according to the Quality of Life Explorer created by Mecklenburg County, the city of Charlotte, and UNC Charlotte. Based on this narrative of growth and progress, Charlotte shows all the signs of a New South city. Yet, a 2014 study from Harvard and UC Berkeley ranked Charlotte 50th out of 50 cities for social mobility, and this lack of social mobility disproportionately affects minorities. This contradicted Charlotte’s New South city narrative.

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Worth More Weekly- Sharing Our Stories

Are you looking for a platform to read about key financial concepts, learn about social issues such as upward mobility and the wage gap, and get to know your team at Worth Advisors? Look no further than Worth More Weekly, Worth Advisors’ first official blog. We created Worth More Weekly to further connect with our community through articles, polls, quizzes, interviews, and media. We want to share our stories.

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Building and/or Restoring Credit

Excerpt Adapted From: The Financial Shepherd-
Why Dollars + Change = Sense by Glen Wright and Sy Pugh

In building or restoring credit, the goal should not be to have no credit at all, but rather to use your credit wisely. Use credit as a resource, not as an emergency reserve fund. Credit not only affects your purchasing power but it can affect getting a new job or getting life insurance to protect your loved ones. The goal is to achieve a high credit score of 720 or above. There are several easy ways to help build up your score.

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