Meet Sandra, a 59-year-old fitness enthusiast, grandmother, and a hugger. Two years ago, she left her family in North Carolina to start a new life in Arizona. Follow her financial journey:

“One of my goals now is to learn how to save money for the first time in my life. I'll be 59 this month and I have got to learn to save money. That starts with accountability and being more intentional when stewarding my money.

I don't want to live paycheck to paycheck and have to wonder whether I can afford a plane ticket to go home to see my grandchildren. My daughter just had her fourth baby and luckily I was able to go visit, but one of the things I want to work on is changing my financial situation. I don’t want to go back to the way I was living before COVID.

I left my family in North Carolina two years ago, uprooted my life and drove across the country to Arizona. I found a job working as a receptionist for a full service salon. I loved my job and I loved my coworkers, but I was barely making ends meet. During that time, Earnin helped me tremendously because I was only getting paid $14 an hour, so I had nothing left over after taxes and paying my bills.

Then COVID hit and I became unemployed. The government started giving people $600 a week, which was a blessing because it helped me get caught up on my bills. I was actually getting more from unemployment than I had been from working at the salon. Do I want to be on unemployment for the rest of my life? No, but I was thankful for it because it helped me a lot.

Through this experience, I want to focus on the good that can come out of it and how I can learn from it. And the biggest thing for me was recognizing that I don’t want to go back to the way things were and that it’s time to start creating steps to get my life to the financial place that I want it to be.”

The Earnin community is filled with stories of people working to get to a better financial place. We’re here to help each other get there.