Not taking stability for granted

Growing up, Jasmine was missing one thing many of us take for granted—stability. Her family moved from rental property to rental property throughout her childhood.

“As a kid, if I didn’t switch schools three times a year, then it wasn’t normal to me,” Jasmine said. “I couldn’t make friends or call anywhere home. It was really hard for us. Life was chaotic.”

Now Jasmine is providing the stability she never had to her two sons Octavio (five) and Carlito (two). She built and purchased a new home through Habitat for Humanity of Kent County.

Habitat Kent, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, partners with people to build and preserve affordable homeownership opportunities while helping revitalize and restore urban neighborhoods. Habitat homebuyers help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage.

As part of the homeownership program, Jasmine had to earn a minimum of 275 sweat equity hours that included construction, homeownership classes, and financial education courses.

Because of the State Farm support of Habitat Kent’s homebuyer financial education program, Jasmine learned valuable information and skills necessary to pay off debt and become financially stable.

“It felt like a big weight lifted off my shoulders, like literally, because of all the medical debt that I had,” Jasmine said.

By using the snowballing debt method Jasmine focused on paying off small debts first and then slowly moving towards larger payments. She said she was able to cut back on things to save money towards debt payments.

By gaining financial peace and homeownership education, Jasmine believes she will be a better homeowner in the long run.

“They teach you so much that you feel prepared,” Jasmine said. “You have that anticipation and then you have that preparation behind that anticipation and it makes you feel powerful, I feel powerful.”