Nicole Cheek & Tarik Cranston
“Any money you spend now, you are sacrificing things you can have in the future,” Nicole says. “Everyone wants your money, you can’t let them win. You need to fight back by keeping it in your pocket.”
Tarik Cranston and Nicole Cheek are already moving toward financial success as an engaged couple with the recent purchase of their first home. Both Tarik and Nicole are thrilled. “Our biggest savings goal was the home that we just purchased…it’s still not 100% real [to me] yet,” Nicole said. Tarik is proud to accomplish something his parents never did. Growing up in New York City, he remembers his parents always renting property, but never owning it, and now that he’s a homeowner he feels more invested in his community. “I’m very excited to be a homeowner. For the first time, I really believed. I really paid attention to the elections, now that I have a home.”
Tarik originally signed up for an Individual Development Account after finding out about CAAB through Home Free USA—an organization that educates people on how to become successful homeowners. Tarik says he was drawn to CAAB because of its work to help minorities attain asset ownership. “My dad always instilled in us that financial goals are very, very important. To have an organization help assist with that is amazing,” he said. After getting engaged, Tarik and Nicole were able to switch over to the Marriage Development Account (MDA) program and still receive a 3:1 match on their savings.
The pair have benefited from the MDA program’s free couples’ financial counseling, which helped them work together to map their financial future. Both enjoyed the counseling sessions, and Nicole learned a lot about the importance of talking to your partner about your finances. “What we both learned was to really sit down and have business meetings with each other in a neutral location,” says Nicole, “Sometimes in the home if there’s any kind of anxiety, you need to remove yourself to another place… a place where neither one of you has been before or place where there are good memories associated with it.” Now they realize location can make a huge difference in how cooperative a couple is feeling. “Yes we are emotional partners, but we’re also a business partnership,” says Nicole.
To help them stay on track, the couple also take advantage of the supports available through DC Saves and attended CAAB’s Money Management 101 classes. “The best thing is it [put us] in contact with other people who have the same goal in mind and gave us free financial education,” Tarik says. He even enjoyed the financial classes so much he attended them twice, once by himself and then again with Nicole.
Now planning to use their MDA funds to help pay for Nicole’s professional school, the couple set goals together and have learned how to make their savings plan stick. Tarik says “Save with a goal in mind. Blind saving is equally as bad as not saving. If you don’t have a goal, you don’t know what you’re working for, so keep your goal in front of you.” They also support one another to stay on guard against consumerism and overspending. “Any money you spend now, you are sacrificing things you can have in the future,” Nicole says. “Everyone wants your money, you can’t let them win. You need to fight back by keeping it in your pocket.”
So what’s next for this power couple? Well, tying the knot of course! And as Tarik and Nicole prepare to get married, they couldn’t be happier about their new home and shared success. As Tarik says, “Everything we can accomplish together is what I’m most proud of.”
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