Financial makeover: DMC selects 3 women for intensive money mentoring

SALT LAKE CITY — It's cute when the slogan is a bumper sticker and not a lifestyle: I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.

But Sandra Cameron would be the first to tell you that owing $37,000, much of it in credit card debt, is just plain stressful.

Melody Hillam will tell you that she's tried budgeting, but for some reason it doesn't quite work for her family, and she's often left wondering where the money went.

As for controlling your money and making it work on your behalf, that's a goal dear to Stephanie Leavitt's heart. And not part of her reality so far, she says.

For many families, the how-to of budgeting, debt management and investing are complete mysteries. And until they're solved, managing the household finances — whether you're a single person or a family of seven like Hillam's — seems somehow impossible.

Deseret Media Companies and its partners are launching these three women on representative journeys to peel away some of the mystery. Each woman, selected from a field of more than 500 total applicants, will be closely mentored for one year by financial experts in the area of her greatest challenge. The representative part comes from the hope that thousands of others will learn in tandem with them by following along as the trio blog at www.imagineahappieryou.com and are featured in stories by Deseret News, El Observador de Utah, and KSL NewsRadio and TV, who will track their journey and their financial progress.

The initiative, called "Imagine a Happier You," is particularly timely as Americans wrestle with the ugly combination of a painfully tight economy and some less-than-helpful consumer trends.

As Cece Mitchell, senior vice president and manager of the women's financial group at Zions Bank, which is the partner that will mentor Melody Hillam, wrote in a blog, consumer debt has shot up from $355 billion in 1980 to $1.7 trillion in 2001 and to $2.5 trillion in 2009.

Debt management, budgeting and investment are all about the financial habits people develop — or don't.

"It's just like exercise and it's just like eating right — a life-long commitment," says Leavitt, who expects she will be more effective at planning for her future when she has some guidance in investing.

Leavitt, who's married with three kids, one each in college, high school and grade school, will be guided by Merrill Lynch's Kevin Townsend.