Charte: Trying to Cover the Essentials
With a high-risk pregnancy, Charte didn’t want to take any chances on the health of her third child. So together, she and her fiance made a financial plan that allowed her to leave work in November, giving her two months to rest before her son arrived in January. After spending a few months with him, Charte was ready to get back to work at a new job with the U.S. Census in March — but the job was suspended before she could start work. Now she and her fiance are trying to raise their three boys without Charte’s income, in the midst of COVID-19. “I was about to go to work on my second day, and they said, ‘we’re suspended’, and they haven’t started back yet,” she said.
Charte’s fiance works at a power plant about an hour from their home in Alabama. The commute is long, but Charte says they’re just glad he’s still working. Charte holds down the fort at home with the boys — their four-month-old baby, a three-year-old, and a 14-year-old who just finished his school year using his mother’s phone because the family does not have a computer.
Charte doesn’t qualify for unemployment, because she wasn’t at her new job for ninety days. Although the IRS online portal says that their stimulus checks have been mailed, Charte and her fiance haven’t received them yet. Charte qualifies for WIC but the program has limitations — it just covers basics like milk, cheese, eggs, and baby formula. With all three kids home and not getting their meals at school, Charte says the family is going through groceries faster than ever. “I’ve got all boys, you know. And they just eat and eat all day!” she said.
Charte is applying for jobs and waiting to hear about her suspended census job. In the meantime, the SaverLife emergency payment helped her to cover some essentials for her boys. “I got the baby a big box of Pampers and wipes, and my three-year-old still wears pull-ups sometimes so I got him a box of those. Then I paid half our rent,” she said.
Charte and her fiance used SaverLife to build up the nest egg that allowed her to take time off during her pregnancy, and once she is working again she hopes to be able to save more. “We had planned for so much, but we couldn’t have planned for this. But we’ve been making it, we’ve been managing it. And [SaverLife] could help me save money again once I have money to save,” she said.