Family learning better money management

CEDAR HILLS — Melody Hillam thinks she's getting pretty comfortable with budgeting, after months of practice and guidance from a professional mentor. What's she's learned to do, she says, is squeeze and compress everything that goes out of the family's funds in as many ways as she can figure to do it.

But she has also concluded that the next step on her path to financial freedom hinges on growing the amount of money that comes into her home; she's always felt they lived pretty close to the edge and it turns out she was right. But growing an income isn't easy in a bad economy when your husband already works hard — Todd Hillam is a manager at a microbiology lab — and you're the stay-at-home mom of five little kids.

Hillam is one of three women selected for financial mentoring as part of Deseret Media Companies' initiative to help women improve their financial prospects. The "Imagine a Happier You" initiative has teamed up with AAA Fair Credit, Merrill Lynch and Zions Bank to provide one-on-one mentoriing to the trio. Sandra Cameron is wrestling her debt under control with guidance from AAA Fair Credit, Merrill Lynch is helping Stephanie Leavitt figure out how to invest and Hillam is getting intensive budgeting guidance from Zions Bank.

The Hillams have very little debt right now — just a car loan — but that was not always the case, says Hillam. They owed close to $10,000 at one point and it bothered her so much she took up a paper route and between that and their savings, they paid it off. So that's the big challenge right now: She and Todd are trying to rebuild their savings, but that's hard to do when almost everything goes to paying bills.

She needs to increase the household income, according to her mentor, Cristie Richards, a senior vice president at Zions Bank.

She's done that a bit by finding ways to lower household costs. For instance, they changed insurance to get a better premium. Without question, Hillam says, she's "more conscious" of her spending. "Instead of swiping the debit card, I have to think about it. Do I want to spend my money on this if it will just be one less dollar in my wallet? I know how much I can spend and not go over. If I do, I run the risk of going into my overdraft again and that's not something I'm willing to do."