Despite high-paying job, Springville woman was trapped in debt; now she's finding her way out

SPRINGVILLE — Telling strangers, even money managers, about your personal debt is a little like flipping over a chocolate-covered strawberry, only to reveal a speck of fuzz growing on its underside. It's not exactly the way you'd like to present yourself.

But that's what Stephanie Leavitt has been doing for months now.

"That first meeting was embarrassing and hard. Emotion came into play," says Leavitt, who is eight months into yearlong professional financial mentoring as part of the Deseret Media Companies' "Imagine a Happier You" initiative on financial empowerment for women. In those months, she has not only gone very public — weekly blogs, newspaper, radio and television stories, and a couple of public appearances — with discussion of her family's finances, she has also managed to pay off close to $5,000 in debt and save nearly $2,300.

Not bad for a woman who once described money as "an emotional mystery."

Leavitt, a project manager at Novell, makes a very nice living, but readily admits that she never paid much attention to the money coming in or going out of her life. If she and husband, Jared, felt like taking the kids to dinner or going on a vacation, they just did it. But meeting regularly with an adviser from one of the initiative's partners, Kevin Townsend of Merrill Lynch, the Leavitts learned they needed some foundational principles, like budgeting and savings and paying down debt. And the first step was simply accounting for their money.

"I'm hyper-aware of where my money is going now," she said. "Every day, I am looking at that. That's a complete 180. But that awareness is really empowering. And," there's a slight pause and a laugh, "I am a saver. We take less on a whim. We don't have the attitude we'll just make it work and pay for it later. We're much more aware of the consequences."

It's not always fun, she and Jared, agree. "I don't get to spend nearly as much money as I used to," he said, admitting he's also struggled with the very public display of their personal finances. "I am much more of a private person and I was pretty reluctant."

But he hasn't let it stop him from going with his wife to many of the financial mentoring sessions with Townsend who, he said, "has all the tools and could put into terms I understand what we can expect if we don't buckle down and think seriously about the things responsible people do." That includes goals like having a real savings account with, ideally, at least three months of monthly income in case something happens. Their earlier financial plan consisted of hoping that any bump in the road would come with a good severance package.