A Course That Will Change Your Life

Cindy Shapiro
5 min readMar 11, 2024

No kidding — it’s that important

Photo by Guillaume Briard on Unsplash

I’ve been an educator for over twenty years. And I’ll admit it: While holding the ladder for all of my students to climb up, I’ve been at a standstill when it comes to thinking about my future. I guess I lacked foresight — and maybe I never thought I’d make it past forty (morbid, I know). I have a husband and two kids, and the early years as an educator making peanuts followed by my peanuts getting sucked up by the monstrous vacuum that is daycare costs made it feel like there was never anything left to invest in anything.

So I did nothing.

After surviving a serious health setback and realizing, Wow, I’m going to make it, my thinking shifted. Strangely, I’m more optimistic now than ever before, and I’ve started thinking ahead. Lately, I’ve been daydreaming about retirement. I can picture it: sitting on a screened-in porch facing the lake, typing up my next novel on my computer while the morning brightens.

Problem was, I had no idea about how to get to that place. My understanding of finances and planning for retirement was non-existent before February. And then, I took a course that has changed my life unlike any other: Personal Financial Literacy for Colorado Educators.

I stumbled across it as I worked towards attaining a personal goal: getting a…

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Cindy Shapiro

Cindy Shapiro is long-time teacher living in Colorado. As a writer, she aims to elevate teachers’ voices and provide insight on issues in education.