Meet the Boot Camp families

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- We have three families who will join the Consumer Connection Financial Fitness Boot Camp with cameras rolling -- we'll follow their progress every step of the way, and you can play along at home.

So let’s meet the families and the trainers who will turn their financial flab to muscle:

Our first Boot Camp family: Jeremy and Stacy Ashe of Charlotte. Both are 29 years old and the proud parents of two young children. Jeremy is a restaurant manager and she raises the kids and works as a part time nurse.

When he first wrote to us, asking to be a part of Boot Camp, Jeremy wrote, "We have two car payments, 4 credit cards, cell phone bill, daycare expenses, and we rent a house in the University area for $1,100 a month. We are surviving and doing okay but would like to learn how to become more financially responsible and stable."

Some of the Ashes’ goals? With little savings to show for their $80,000 a year income, they will focus on tracking their spending to understand where opportunities to save are.

"We make enough money to where it’s frustrating where it’s not there,” Jeremy said. "You get to the end of the month and you're like. where did it go?!"

"I want you to do a really diligent job of tracking expenses,” said Andrew Lyons, a financial consultant for Lincoln Financial Group and the man who will lead the Ashes through Boot Camp.

First, they'll need to pay down their $26,000 in debt, including student loans. Jeremy's is currently in forbearance. The Ashes are ready for the challenge and tired of worrying about money at night.

"It runs through my head when I lay in bed at night, ‘Oh I've got to pay this. I've got to pay this.’ I don't sleep well," Stacy said.

Moving on to the competition: Boot Camper Donna Chryst of Harrisburg. She's the 52-year-old mother of a college student who works full time at a hospital. Donna brings in about $46,000 a year. When Donna wrote to us, she said, "I think my biggest problem is I just don't know how to budget. It's so depressing when I put all my figures down on paper - I actually spend more than I make and I don't have any idea where to 'cut back.'"

We teamed Donna up with financial consultant Todd Calamita of RBC Dain Rauscher to help her figure out why she still can't make ends meet and isn't saving for retirement. We listened in on their first meeting. Todd told Donna, "Uou have a good stable job and a manageable mortgage payment. You don't have a car payment or credit card debt, so there's positives with what you have to work with."

The problem is Donna often has trouble making ends meet.

"I can put it on paper and it just doesn't work and it’s overwhelming and kinda depressing," Donna said.

Todd thinks the answer is finding a way to put 10 percent of her income away.

"The first thing to start the process is to figure out where your money is going and what you are spending it on," Todd said.

And our final competitor is 26-year-old Michelle Perno of Charlotte. She is a recent college grad and physician's assistant. She makes $86,000 dollars a year. When Michelle asked to be a part of Boot Camp, she wrote, "My goals are to pay off my student loan as soon as possible, save for retirement (which right now I have no savings or even a plan because my employer does not offer a 401k or anything), save for a vacation, save for a down payment on a larger house in the future, save for a new car in a few years. My problem is that I don't know the first thing about retirement accounts or how much I should be saving for it. I also don't know if it is better to pay extra money towards my student loan (above the monthly payment) or to save that money in my own account and accrue the interest (and then pay the tax). Because I really want to pay it off early to avoid paying all the ridiculous interest."

Enter financial consultant Valerie Carlock from United Family Services.

"Michelle has been more focused on saving, she's not a big spender, she tracks her spending,” Valerie said.

But Michelle isn't using what she saves to aggressively pay down more than $150,000 in debts.

“That is money that can be applied towards your student loan and pay those off sooner," Valerie explains.

And even though she's just in her 20s, it’s not too soon to start thinking about a retirement plan.

"Because her employer is not contributing to a retirement plan, she has to become proactive,” Valerie says.

And this statement from Michelle sums up how so many of us feel: "They don't have courses in college for this kind of thing. I wish they did because I would have taken it.”

We will be following these Boot Campers all month, learning from their challenges and successes.

And you can play along at home. Take the first step by checking out the resources on our Financial Fitness Boot Camp page. There, you can test your financial savvy with our online quiz, get links to helpful resources and learn more about our financial consultants.

Not sure where to start? Try making a spending plan. Then, share your story and tips with others.