Dora Beyer Excite Credit Union

We are pleased to have Excite Credit Union, Community Relations Manager, Dora Beyer share with us an “AHA” money moment and memory.

Welcome Dora!

About Dora

Dora started her career guiding first-generation students to higher education. She championed it against a common sentiment: “College isn’t for everyone.”

She is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz and held a variety of positions prior to joining Excite Credit Union.

According to Dora, she is a fierce yet compassionate, ambitious while pragmatic, highly organized and adaptable. She is driven by the values of connection, responsibility, growth, balance, equity and access!

You can discover more about Dora on her LinkedIn profile.

And you can find out more about Excite Credit Union and its strong commitment to community and financial literacy education in this Sammy PARTNER BLOG as well as on their website: ExciteCU.org.

Graduation Day

My bank account had less than $10 on my college graduation day.

I was at the Santa Cruz boardwalk celebrating with friends and family. I wanted to purchase the picture they took of us on the Big Dipper, but my debit card didn’t go through.

Ooops!

I thought it must be an error, someone else paid for it, and I didn’t worry more at the time.

I later realized it was because I didn’t have enough in the account. And that made me realize that I wasn’t aware how much I was spending and where.

The Moment

I wasn’t managing my money, so from that moment, I was determined to change, to consciously save and to never have that happen again.

College Days

As a first-generation college student, I also remember not knowing how I’d pay for college and having to learn about financial aid and loans as I went.

All through college I spent my days in class, at work, volunteering or in extra-curricular activities. I was surviving, without dedicating time to establishing goals or better monitoring my income and spending.

I Wished

My parents are immigrants from Mexico, and it seemed they too were always learning and unable to immediately teach me.

I wished that finances had been a dinner table conversation topic; that we could have discussed spending, debt, saving, credit and other topics comfortably, but we never did.

Now it’s important to me that financial health be a valued element of overall well-being. I definitely learned from that experience to confront my finances - to know exactly how much was coming in and how much was going out - so that I could make changes and choose where it would go, with a healthier financial future in-mind.

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