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(ATLANTA) — When Michelle Lockhart was a teenager in Atlanta, she had to work two jobs — as a camp counselor and fast-food worker — to take care of her family.

She said her mother became disabled at that time due to a brain tumor, but it took months of cutting through red tape to qualify for desperately needed federal assistance.

If they had gotten more help then, “I could have focused on going to college and doing what people my age were doing: going to prom and enjoying their teen years,” Lockhart, now 41, told ABC News.

In the early months of this year, 650 Black women across Georgia — a demographic hit particularly hard by poverty — will get some of that help. Payments of $850 per month will roll out over the next two years in one of the biggest guaranteed income experiments in the country. Some participants in the $13 million initiative may receive lump sum payments totaling the same amount they would have received over two years. For now, the process of inviting and selecting participants is ongoing.

The program will run alongside Atlanta’s own basic income program which plans to serve about 300 residents that live below 200% of the federal poverty line. The initiative is currently working on making its first round of payments to the starting cohort of 25 participants, according to Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ office.

Guaranteed income programs like these have seen a resurgence in recent years amid attempts to address racial and economic equality and reduce poverty. The scope can be either targeted or universal. They have had successes, but some critics say these initiatives have to be multifaceted to work and address the nuances of poverty. Others claim it will stop people from working (though the claim has been debunked) or be too expensive to maintain.

As a community advocate and member of the Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force, Lockhart said many of her neighbors continue to experience similar hardships, despite working day and night in an effort to escape poverty. many of her neighbors continue to experience similar hardships, despite working day and night in an effort to escape poverty.

“Everybody’s on this hamster wheel,” Lockhart said. “They’re working two or three jobs … they’re working low wage jobs, but they’re still in poverty.”

Burden on communities of color

Black residents in Atlanta are more four times as likely to be living under the federal poverty line than their white neighbors, with 46% of Black households earning below $25,000 a year, according to recent research by the Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force.

Some 38% of Black women and 26% of Black men in the city are living in poverty, compared to 8% of white women and 5% of white men in the same city, the task force reports.

“We’re working, we’re tired, we’re stressed,” Lockhart said. “With an extra $850 a month, people will be able to enjoy the sunlight and will be able to spend more time with their babies.”

Hope Wollensack, the executive director of the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund, said the program is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is needed to address inequality.

“It’ll take a multifaceted approach — and probably many different policies — to even begin to address the racial wealth gap,” she said. “But we do know that stabilizing one’s income can be a powerful tool not only to improve one’s material circumstances in the short term and to improve quality of life and opportunities but also to enable individuals across the board to plan for the long term.”

The program, called “In Her Hands,” was shaped by discussions and surveys from community members that examined the causes of economic insecurity and wealth disparities in the city.

The project, run by the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund, is an initiative from the Atlanta City Council, as well as the nonprofit cash assistance service GiveDirectly. It will begin rolling out in the Old Fourth Ward, the childhood neighborhood of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who was a fierce advocate for universal basic income as a way of addressing racial wealth inequities.

“We have economic insecurity that is pervasive and it’s the result of decades of policies, if not more, that have made it harder for the majority of Americans to get ahead,” Wollensack said.

The ability to access quality education, transportation and higher-paying jobs, the burden of childcare or predatory debt — factors like these, Wollensack said, are also more likely to burden communities of color.

Poverty and food insecurity can impact a community’s physical and mental health, and is considered one “of the most serious and costly health problems,” according to the Food Research & Action Center, a national nonprofit research organization working to eradicate poverty.

‘Hard to budget from zero’

Cash assistance and guaranteed income have been repeatedly proven to be a major force against poverty, according to researchers at the Columbia University, Center on Poverty & Social Policy.

Past studies and research has shown evidence that basic income experiments improved the happiness and health of its recipients and appeared to affect crime rates in the regions where it was implemented.

The program won’t offer any financial literacy courses and advise how participants will use the money. Wollensack says that, in surveying and researching the community and its financial needs, people can be trusted to make the right choices using their resources, but don’t have a lot of resources to start with.

“It’s hard to budget from zero,” Wollensack said. “In fact, we’ve seen oftentimes community members with some of the fewest resources are the most resilient and resourceful.”

She added, “Instead of viewing communities that may have experienced cash shortfalls as a deficit, we actually know and believe that these communities were huge assets.”

Lockhart said she expects to see the effects of the income boost almost instantaneously.

She says that when the COVID-19 stimulus reached the bank accounts of Old Fourth Ward residents, she saw a mood shift among her neighbors. She says people were out and chatting with neighbors, engaging with neighborhood businesses — the weight of financial stress lessened for just a while.

“They want to get out and work. They want to start their own businesses. They want to spend more time with their children,” Lockhart said “This will help slow people down a little bit so that they can focus and center themselves and center their energy right.”

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(NEW YORK) — Bank of America announced Tuesday that it will slash overdraft fees — the fines consumers pay when they make a purchase with their debit card but don’t have enough money in their account — from $35 to $10 starting this May.

The changes come in the wake of pressure from consumer advocacy groups that say these fees disproportionately impact vulnerable and low-income Americans.

A report released last month by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau found that overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees remain lucrative for banks, reaching an estimated $15.5 billion in 2019. The CFPB also said fewer than 9% of consumer accounts pay 10 or more overdrafts per year, accounting for close to 80% of all overdraft revenue.

Moreover, despite a drop in fees collected, the CFPB said “many of the fee harvesting practices persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In addition to reducing overdraft fees, Bank of America also announced Tuesday that it was entirely eliminating “non-sufficient funds fees,” or the charges for a rejected transaction or bounced check.

The bank, which has 66 million consumer and small business clients, said it will have reduced overdraft fees by 97% from 2009 levels with these new changes.

Other major financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase and Capital One have cut or eliminated these fees that can seemingly catch customers by surprise at times, when something they think they are purchasing for only a few dollars can end up being closer to $40.

“Rather than competing on quality service and attractive interest rates, many banks have become hooked on overdraft fees to feed their profit model” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement last month. “We will be taking action to restore meaningful competition to this market.”

Bank of America’s president of retail banking, Holly O’Neill, said the company has made significant changes to overdraft services over the last decade and now provides resources to help clients manage accounts.

“Throughout the process we have engaged our National Community Advisory Council (NCAC) for their guidance and feedback on our changes,” O’Neill said. “These latest steps will further support our clients and empower them to create long-term financial wellness.”

“We remain committed to taking actions that will further bring down overdraft fees in the future and continue to empower clients to drive positive changes to behavior pertaining to overdraft,” she added.
 

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(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in New York to halt a civil investigation into his business practices by New York Attorney General Letitia James, accusing her in a new court filing of weaponizing her office to carry out a “targeted attack against a political adversary.”

Trump sued James last month in federal court to block her investigation into how the Trump Organization valued its real estate holdings. He is now asking for a preliminary injunction while the outcome of his lawsuit is decided and for James to recuse herself from the civil investigation.

“Letitia James has displayed a shocking irreverence for her prosecutorial ethics and has routinely exploited her position to malign the former president by turning an unfounded investigation into a public spectacle,” Trump’s motion said. “In doing so, she has exposed the vindictive and self-serving nature of her actions.”

In response, James said this was merely a delay tactic by the former president.

“The Trump Organization has continually sought to delay our investigation into its business dealings. To be clear, neither Donald Trump nor the Trump Organization get to dictate if and where they will answer for their actions,” James said in a statement. “Our investigation will continue undeterred because no one is above the law, not even someone with the name Trump.”

James recently subpoenaed two of Trump’s children, eldest son Donald Trump Jr. and eldest daughter Ivanka Trump, and indicated in a court filing neither would cooperate.

The Trump Organization sought to vacate the subpoenas, arguing they were improperly issued while the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, with assistance from James’ office, conducts a parallel criminal investigation.

“The all too familiar subject areas identified in the document subpoenas include requests for information about valuations and appraisals of properties and assets of Plaintiffs. These matters have long been the subject of Defendant’s joint criminal investigation with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and Defendant’s civil investigation dating back to 2019,” Trump’s motion said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Americans will soon be seeing the face of the late Maya Angelou on U.S. quarters.

On Monday, the United States Mint announced it has begun shipping quarters featuring Angelou, the first of five trailblazing American women to be featured on quarters in 2022.

The new quarter, available in local banks starting in late January, depicts Angelou, an award-winning author and civil rights activist, with her arms uplifted, in front of a bird in flight and a rising sun, images that are “inspired by [Angelou’s] poetry and symbolic of the way she lived,” according to the Mint.

Angelou is now the first Black woman to appear on a U.S. quarter.

The heads side of the quarter featuring Angelou also marks a first, according to the Mint. It depicts a portrait of George Washington originally composed by Laura Gardin Fraser, described by the Mint as “one of the most prolific female sculptors of the early 20th century.”

Gardin Fraser’s portrait was a recommended design for the quarter in 1932, but was not chosen by the then-treasury secretary.

“Laura Gardin Fraser was the first woman to design a U.S. commemorative coin, and her work is lauded in both numismatic and artistic circles,” Mint Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson said in a statement. “Ninety years after she intended for it to do so, her obverse design will fittingly take its place on the quarter.”

The designs are part of the American Women Quarters Program, a four year program featuring coins with reverse (tails) designs of women who have made their mark in American history.

For each year until 2025, the Mint will issue five quarters honoring individuals with a wide range of accomplishments and fields, including suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space and the arts.

In addition to Angelou, the women being featured this year include Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood; Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman to soar into space; Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation and an activist for Native American and women’s rights; and Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools.

“Each 2022 quarter is designed to reflect the breadth and depth of accomplishments being celebrated throughout this historic coin program,” Gibson said. “Maya Angelou, featured on the reverse of this first coin in the series, used words to inspire and uplift.”

Angelou was the author of more than 30 bestselling titles, including her autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. A teacher, poet and performer, in addition to her work as a writer and social activist, Angelou became the first African-American woman to write and present a poem at a Presidential inauguration when she read “On the Pulse of Morning” at then-President Bill Clinton’s 1992 inauguration, according to the Mint.

In 2010, Angelou was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President Barack Obama.

She passed away in 2014, at the age of 86.

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(WASHINGTON) — Employers added a lackluster 199,000 jobs last month — significantly lower than economists’ expectations — and the unemployment rate fell to 3.9%, the Department of Labor said Friday.

Hiring in December was even less than the revised figure for the previous month, when 249,000 jobs were added to the economy in November. The stalled job growth comes as new coronavirus variants continue to sow uncertainty and threaten the post-pandemic economic recovery — though the data for December was collected in the earlier half of the month, before the full extent of omicron’s severity unfolded.

The unemployment rate remains heightened compared to the pre-pandemic 3.5% seen in February 2020, indicating the labor market recovery still lags nearly two years into the health crisis. As of last month, employment is up by 18.8 million jobs since the April 2020 low but still down by 3.6 million compared to February 2020.

December’s hiring data is also significantly less than 2021’s average job growth of 573,000 jobs per month seen during the past year.

The DOL said employment continued to trend upwards in the pandemic-clobbered leisure and hospitality sector (which gained 53,000 jobs last month), but employment in the industry is still down by 1.2 million jobs (or 7.2%) compared to February 2020.

Employment in professional and business services gained 43,000 jobs last month and notable job gains were also seen in manufacturing (where hiring rose by 26,000 in December).

Average hourly earnings, meanwhile, rose by 19 cents last month to $31.31 an hour. Economists have linked the rising wages to struggles major firms have reported in hiring in recent months and the new wave of workplace activism brought on by that trend. Just this week, the Labor Department separately reported that a record 4.5 million workers quit their jobs in November.

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(NEW YORK) — In May 2020, as protests over the death of George Floyd raged across the country, federal security officer Dave Patrick Underwood was shot and killed while protecting the federal courthouse in Oakland, California.

The alleged shooter, Steven Carrillo, an active-duty Air Force staff sergeant, carried a ballistic vest with a patch that featured an igloo and a Hawaiian-style print that are both associated with the far-right anti-government boogaloo movement, according to the federal criminal complaint.

The criminal complaint also said Carrillo — who was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty — used his own blood to scrawl “boog” on the hood of a vehicle and met an accomplice online through a Facebook group centered on the boogaloo movement.

Now, Underwood’s sister, Angela, is suing Facebook in California Superior Court, alleging the company used its algorithms and group function to actively recruit members for far-right extremist groups and promote dangerous content. Her lawsuit also alleges Facebook ignored the foreseeable risk of violence in order to maximize profits and united Carrillo and his alleged accomplice — two people it says would otherwise have not known each other.

Promoting extremist activity, the lawsuit said, contributed to Underwood’s death.

“The shooting was not a random act of violence. It was the culmination of an extremist plot hatched and planned on Facebook by two men who Meta [Facebook’s new company name] connected through Facebook’s groups infrastructure and its use of algorithms designed and intended to increase user engagement and, correspondingly, Meta’s profits,” the civil complaint, filed in Alameda County, said.

“Facebook bears responsibility for the murder of my brother,” Angela Underwood Jacobs said in a statement. “Facebook knowingly promoted inflammatory and violent content and connected extremists who plotted and carried out the killing of my brother. Facebook must be held responsible for the harm it has caused not just my family, but so many others through its promotion of extremist content and by promoting algorithms to actively recruit members to its web platform.”

Her attorney, Ted Leopold, cited whistleblower testimony before Congress that accused Facebook of knowingly encouraging and promoting extremist content.

“We believe and intend to show that Facebook’s conduct has led to a rise in extremism throughout the world and acts of real-world violence, including the murder of Officer Underwood,” Leopold said.

Earlier this year, Facebook said it has taken measures to counter hate and extremism online.

And in testimony before Congress in March, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “the vast majority of what people see on Facebook is neither political nor hateful” and that “we work hard to prevent abuse of our platform.”

“Facebook’s mission is to bring people together, and we stand firmly against hate and the incitement of violence,” Zuckerberg testified. “We have industry-leading policies that prohibit such content on our platforms, and we invest billions of dollars and work tirelessly to improve and enforce these policies.”

In June 2020, Facebook said it removed more than 200 accounts associated with a “violent US-based anti-government network” that “uses the term boogaloo but is distinct from the broader and loosely-affiliated boogaloo movement.”

“For months, we have removed boogaloo content when there is a clear connection to violence or a credible threat to public safety, and today’s designation will mean we remove more content going forward, including Facebook Groups and Pages,” the statement said.

In Boogaloo Facebook groups, the suspect, Carrillo, mused about taking advantage of protests to stir up unrest and violence against police, according to the civil complaint which quoted his post: “Go to the riots and support our own cause. Show them the real targets. Use their anger to fuel our fire. Think outside the box. We have mobs of angry people to use to our advantage.”

Carrillo believed that the Boogaloo, or second civil war, was “kicking off now and if its not kicking off in your hood then start it,” according to the civil complaint.

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(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Two tickets sold in California and Wisconsin were the lucky winners of the Powerball jackpot on Wednesday night.

Both tickets matched all six numbers in Powerball’s drawing and the winners will split the $632.6 million jackpot — the seventh largest in the American lottery game’s history. The grand prize had climbed beyond earlier estimates of $630 million due to “strong ticket sales,” according to a press release from Powerball.

Each of the winning tickets is worth an annuitized $316.3 million or $225.1 million cash. Both prize options are prior to taxes, according to Powerball.

The winning California ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven in Sacramento, according to the California State Lottery.

Wednesday night’s drawing was the 40th in the Powerball jackpot run, according to Powerball. The winning numbers were 6, 14, 25, 33, 46 and the Powerball was 17.

The last time someone won a Powerball jackpot was on Oct. 4, 2021, when a single ticket sold in California matched the winning numbers for the $699.8 million grand prize.

According to Powerball, the overall odds of winning a prize are one in 24.9, while the odds of winning the jackpot are one in 292.2 million. To date, Powerball holds the world record for largest jackpot. The record $1.586 billion grand prize was shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in 2016.

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(WASHINGTON) — Major retailers have increased the price of at-home COVID-19 tests now that an agreement with the White House to sell them at a fixed price has expired.

In September, Walmart, Kroger and Amazon agreed to sell the two-pack boxes of at-home rapid antigen tests for $14 for three months amid a surge in positive cases with the delta and omicron variants. The agreement has since expired, according to a White House official.

Walmart is now charging $19.88 per box, where available, and Kroger has raised the price to $23.99. The brand is currently unavailable on Amazon’s website.

Despite the price hike, the at-home tests remain sold out — both online and in stores across the country

When asked Wednesday whether the Biden administration is currently in talks with retailers to bring the price of the tests back down, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to say.

“I can’t give you an update on any conversations,” Psaki said.

Instead, she pointed to other steps the administration is taking to make tests more available, including purchasing 500 million tests to distribute to Americans for free and requiring insurance companies to reimburse Americans for the tests starting next week.

The government will begin to receive the tests later this month and will then distribute them free of charge, Psaki told reporters on Tuesday, adding that she does not “have an update” on how long it will take to send out all 500 million tests and whether the distribution will occur over a certain period of time.

ABC News’ Mike Hernandez and Elliot Rubin contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Former President Trump’s eldest son and daughter have refused to comply with subpoenas issued by the New York State attorney general’s office as it conducts a civil investigation into the way the family real estate business valued its holdings.

“A dispute has arisen between the OAG and the Individual Trump Parties regarding the Subpoenas,” a document filed Monday said.

The document, filed jointly by New York Attorney General Letitia James and an attorney for the Trump Organization, said Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump will now be named as respondents in James’ ongoing inquiry, which parallels a criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

“As her investigation into financial dealing of the Trump Organization continues, Attorney General James is seeking interviews under oath of Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump,” a spokesperson for the AG’s office said. “Despite numerous attempts to delay our investigation by the Trump Organization, we are confident that our questions will be answered and the truth will be uncovered because no one is above the law.”

Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump sought to quash the subpoenas Monday evening in a motion.

Alan Futerfas, an attorney representing both Trump children, questioned James’ motives: her office is also involved in the criminal investigation of the Trump Organization.

“The goal of the subpoenas is all too clear: Attorney General James seeks to circumvent the entire grand jury process and nullify Moving Parties’ most fundamental constitutional and statutory rights by requesting that they provide non-immunized testimony to the OAG — when the OAG/DANY is jointly conducting a grand jury investigation,” Futerfas wrote in a motion to quash the subpoenas, which he said violate the rules of criminal procedure.

The former president and his company have denied wrongdoing and have attacked the investigation as political.

The ongoing criminal investigation has so far resulted in indictments against the Trump Organization and its longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg on tax charges.

Prosecutors said the company had been paying Weisselberg’s rent, living expenses, private school tuition and car lease without proper reporting on tax returns. Both pleaded not guilty.

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(SAN DIEGO) — A California mom is entering 2022 debt-free after paying off more than $70,000 in student loan and credit card debt.

Amanda Courtney, 36, of San Diego, said she began falling into debt as soon as she entered college, nearly two decades ago.

“There was no way for me to go to college without taking out student loans, so I knew as I was applying for colleges that I was going to have to take out loans,” Courtney told Good Morning America. “I was kind of like, well, everyone takes out student loans, right? It’s fine.”

Courtney said she took out $15,000 in loans for her freshman year of college, and then also got into credit card debt when, at 18, she got a credit card without learning about how to budget and make her payments.

Over the next few years, Courtney said she transferred to two different colleges, including at one point living back at home and attending a community college, to try to lower her student loan debt.

When she graduated from college in 2008, the U.S. was in the midst of a financial crisis and Courtney said she could not find a job. Without a job, she could also not afford to pay off her student loans, she said.

“I continued to enroll in school just so I could defer my student loans because I couldn’t afford to make the minimum payments, all while continuing to accrue more credit card debt,” she said. “And I just fell deeper and deeper into debt.”

At age 25, Courtney, who now works as an administrative assistant at a San Diego high school, got a job working in education that allowed her to start to pay off her debt, but only with the minimum payments each month. She said she quickly learned that though she had deferred making payments on her student loans by taking low-cost community college classes for several years, the interest on her debt had continued to add up.

“I was deferring my loans, but I wasn’t deferring the interest, so though I was deferring making those payments, I was adding to my balance,” she said. “I didn’t have the financial literacy to understand what I was doing and the full implications of what I was doing.”

Courtney said that because federal loans and grants did not cover her full college tuition, she got a loan through a private loan company that carried what she described as an “insane interest rate.”

In the United States, Americans owe nearly $1.8 trillion in student loans, according to the Federal Reserve.

Coming from a family that did not discuss finances or budgeting, Courtney said she “truly did not know” what she was getting herself into when she signed up for student loans.

“I didn’t understand the economics of it and the commitment of it,” she said. “I think I just had this false sense of security that I’m working and I’m going to get a degree and then I’m going to have a job that can pay off the debt so it won’t be a big problem.”

“Then reality hits and you realize that’s not how any of this works and my $15,000 in loans very quickly becomes $30,000,” she said.

Things started to change for Courtney when she started dating her now-husband and they had conversations about their finances.

“I, very innocently, early in our relationship, was like so, ‘How much debt do you have?,'” she recalled. “He looked at me very plainly and said, ‘I don’t have any debt. How much do you have?'”

Courtney said she made a decision in that moment to be honest about her financial woes, and her now-husband worked with her to build a budget, the first time Courtney had done that in her life.

“I truly lived with this mindset that everybody lives with debt. Everybody has student loan debt. Everybody has credit card debt,” she said. “Having had that conversation with my now-husband, I started to think of money differently.”

With that foundation in place, Courtney spent the next nearly eight years paying off $50,000 in student loan debt and $12,000 in credit card debt.

She made her final student loan payment in September 2021.

“It took that long because I did it while still living my life,” said Courtney, who got married and gave birth to her first child and was at one point the sole income earner for her family in those eight years. “We built things into the budget so I felt this freedom to still live my life.”

Here are Courtney’s three tips for paying off debt.

1. Create a budget that works for you.

“The first thing you have to do is you have to be honest with yourself,” said Courtney. “So for me, that meant pulling out all of my credit card statements and all of my student loan balances, and really looking at where I was at, and making a plan.”

Courtney works on what she calls a zero-balance budget, which means that she directs each dollar in her paycheck to a specific location.

“Every month, a week before payday, I can actually view my paycheck, so on that day, I rebuild my budget every single month,” she said. “I look at what I have coming in versus what I have going out and I tell every dollar where to go.”

Courtney said she made sure that even while she was focused on paying off her debt, she allowed herself to continue to live her life.

“I was honest with myself, and I made a plan, but I made a realistic plan,” she said. “You have to allow yourself to go to that lunch celebration with friends. You have to allow yourself to buy yourself a new top every now and again.”

Courtney loves to travel, for example, so she created a special travel savings account that she directed money to each month. She said this allowed her to still travel while being financially responsible.

“If I want to go somewhere, I look at do I have enough in that travel account to go,” she said. “If I don’t, then I don’t get to go.”

2. Consolidate your loans, if possible.

A few years into her debt-paying journey, Courtney said she was able to consolidate her loans into one payment, which made it easier for her to track and pay off the loans.

“That was so freeing,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Education offers a Direct Consolidation loan with no fee.

3. Plan ahead instead of trying to catch up.

Courtney said she kept herself within her budget by learning to plan ahead for major events, like birthdays and holidays and vacations, instead of putting those expenses on credit cards.

“Whereas I always wanted to treat the holidays as an emergency and put it on my credit card and just make it rain in various stores, all of a sudden it was like, ‘Oh, I should be putting away money every month to get there and then look at what I have at the end of the year and look at what I can afford to do for people,'” she said. “One of the years, during my debt payoff, I made all of my Christmas presents for my friends and family.”

“I still felt like I got to give gifts, but I did so within my means,” she said.

4. Focus on small benchmarks at first.

Courtney said she at first focused on paying off her credit card with the lowest balance as a way to feel like she was making progress.

“I continued to make minimum payments on my other [credit cards], but I really focused on that one because I wanted to feel accomplished,” she said. “And when I paid off that first credit card, I remember, it felt so good.”

“It started to feel like, oh, I can do this I can make headway,” Courtney recalled. “Just with every little benchmark, it felt so great and so exciting.”

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