A voice for change: How one educator is using tax time to teach her community about financial health
Images by Yesenia Rosado of Jessra Photography
Whether she’s in her high school English classroom or sitting around her family’s dining room table, SaverLife member Mercedes is eager to discuss financial health with the community around her. A fierce and hopeful optimist, Mercedes brings an inspiring perspective to the tax filing process, demonstrating that everyone can use tax season to gain understanding on their finances.
“I feel that it's important for people to know where their money's going,” she explains. “When you know more, you're able to do more.”
As a Connecticut-based teacher who’s pursuing a graduate degree in education policy, Mercedes also sees tax season as an opportunity to get “paid to learn.” Every year, she uncovers new insights about her finances, whether it’s a change in her annual costs of living, classroom expenses, or her retirement savings. She then turns these learnings into teachable moments, not only with her students, but her friends, coworkers, and even her parents.
Mercedes’ commitment to using her tax return as a learning opportunity is a powerful reminder that, for people living on low-to-moderate incomes, tax season can be life changing. They can plan for financial goals, take stock of last year’s budget and savings, learn more about their financial health, and hopefully build for the future. At SaverLife, we’re committed to sharing stories like Mercedes’ to demystify the tax filing process and highlight that behind every tax return, is a person with unique goals and challenges.
Thanks to Mercedes, we’re also reminded that tax time can bring the financial health outcomes we want to see — on an individual and systemic level. It just takes communication, dedication, and hope for the future we’re striving to build.
“I feel that it’s important for people to know where their money’s going. When you know more, you’re able to do more.”
Live and learn: Teachable tax time moments
In previous years, Mercedes saw tax season as a box she was required to check off. As she explains, she’d take her paperwork to her parents’ tax preparer and pay them to submit her return. However, a watershed moment in 2023 changed how she viewed her taxes. After discovering through a SaverLife article that she could file her taxes on her own — and save more money in the process — she decided to use tax time as an opportunity to learn more about her financial health, especially as it relates to the financial system. “That was the greatest lesson I ever learned,” she describes. “It saved me $200 and now I know what all of the tax language means.”
Feeling more confident and ready to file this year, Mercedes prepared for the 2024 tax season by visiting SaverLife’s Tax Time hub to learn about changes to tax credits, like the Child Tax Credit (CTC), to determine whether the new legislation would affect her return. After completing this initial research, she decided to submit her tax return in early February so that she could take it off her packed to-do list and ensure she received her refund in a timely manner.
Mercedes felt a wave of relief when she finalized her 2023 tax return, saying that she felt good being able to independently file her taxes for the second year in a row. She had taken care to map out how she would spend her tax refund before filing, so she was eager to receive the money to pay off some residential fees and put the rest toward summer classes.
However, Mercedes also acknowledged that waiting to receive the money she’d already dedicated to her summer tuition was stressful. “These uses for my tax refund are very clear to me because I knew what I was getting back, and I budgeted for it all year,” she explains. “All of that planning now makes me anxious to actually get the money I’ve been banking on.” Even with careful planning, Mercedes was relying on her tax refund to maintain her financial stability and meet her savings goal; any delay would still impact her budget. Thankfully, she received her tax refund by mid-February, and was able to put the money toward her building fees and classes.
With her own taxes squared away, Mercedes turned to her high school English classroom to inspire the next generation of tax filers. They reviewed SaverLife’s content to better understand the “how” and “why” people file independently and how to submit a tax return for W-2 income. Her hope was that by discussing this tax information with her students, they would also share their insights at home, teaching their parents how to maximize their families’ tax refunds.
“If you think about tax time and generational wealth,” she says, “They’re very similar. When you have generational wealth, you pass
it down — just like tax information. People who don’t have generational wealth typically don’t know certain things about their taxes either, so they can’t pass it down. These parallels come up in my class when we ask: ‘How can we use this tax or financial information to achieve a different result?’”
Extending her learnings even further, Mercedes also offered to help her parents file their tax return so that they could master the tax language and filing process. She jokes: “I can't give my parents a grandkid at this time, but I can help them file their taxes and try to help them navigate financially responsible decisions.”
Building collective momentum
When Mercedes thinks about her financial health future — and how her tax refunds support this future — she feels conflicted. While she used her 2023 tax refund to achieve her immediate financial goals, she has a lingering feeling that she should hold onto that money, just in case an unexpected emergency arises.
“This new generation is definitely going to be the voice for change.”
“In terms of planning for the future, it's very nerve wracking, because we're in a recession,” Mercedes shares. “I don't foresee this getting any better anytime soon. So I could say, ‘this money is for my future classes.’ But if trends keep going the way they are, will I actually be able to use that money for a future class? Or will it have to go to something else? Because my wage increase is actually not keeping up with the costs of living.”
To counteract these concerns, Mercedes channels her energy into supporting her students and uplifting their ideas for the future. She explains: “I'm really, really excited that the younger generation is advocating for change. Because they see how decimated the Millennials and Gen Z's are. I think what really makes me excited is that this new generation is definitely going to be the voice for change.”
Mercedes also extends her passion for financial education into other avenues of her life. She talks with her godchildren about saving their allowances. She and her colleagues hold each other accountable for their budgeting goals. She advocates for fair wage increases with her teachers union.
Through the success she’s found learning about her financial health and taxes, Mercedes is driven to empower the people in her life and community to do the same. “Now that I know more, I'm able to
do more: to talk to more people and help them learn. Yes, being a teacher is my profession, but being someone who teaches is also my personality. Having the ability to talk to other people about money and support them to make better money decisions is really exciting for me.”
She concludes: “I think that we're at a breaking point, and things are going to get better. We’ve just got to keep the optimism strong.”
Mercedes’ story is part of SaverLife’s Tax Time storytelling series that explores the unique realities that people living on low-to-moderate incomes experience during tax season. This collection of stories wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of H&R Block.
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