Hello. I’m Gay Pustaver, Director and certified consumer credit counselor at FISC Consumer Credit Counseling, your local financial wellness agency serving Door and Kewaunee counties. We are a proud partner of United Way of Door County and Kewaunee County United Funds.
Families and money, family businesses and working with couples and money issues are some of the things we help people with every week at FISC. All our services at FISC are confidential and non-judgmental. There are times when I see 2 or even 3 generations of families together. Often, it is because a family member has been financially helping another family member and can no longer afford to do so. They struggle with how to tell the other family member and with how to “let go” without creating hurt feelings. Other times, I meet with people who share a small family business and there are disagreements about pay, interest in the business, perceptions of inequality in work load, etc. With couples, the 2 people may be on very different pages about how they see money, spending and debt and fights about money come up too often.
These kinds of emotionally loaded money issues can be very difficult for families to handle on their own. Bringing these issues to FISC can help families, and couples, work together in defining the important issues, learning about other community resources that may be able to help and moving forward as partners to make the decisions or changes they need to be successful. Every situation is different – that’s one thing I really like about my job. I don’t have a magic wand and I am not a therapist. However, I am an objective resource with information about options people may not know about and I am a certified mediator, so I can help people work together, if that is their goal. If you need help getting started, call us at FISC – 743-1862.
