April is Financial Literacy Month!

Highlighting Our Financial Wellness Programs

The credit union movement began with the philosophy of “people helping people”. This philosophy is the reason behind the strong financial education and assistance programs credit unions are known to provide. It has been a guiding principle for Credit Union West, which has helped us to earn the trust of Arizonans for over 70 years. We truly want to see our members and our communities succeed. We strive to help them achieve their goals, not only through our products and services, but through financial wellness programs.

This Financial Literacy Month, we are highlighting our free offerings available to all members that help with budgeting, building credit, and facing financial decisions.

Budgeting

Our members have the advantage of a free Budget Tracker tool in Online Banking! This tool allows you to set up a budget for each of your Credit Union West accounts and uses your actual expenses and income to build accurate budgets and plans.

The Budget Tracker analyzes how you use your money every month and reports back to you on spending trends. The program auto-populates real information, so you know exactly what to spend and save when your paycheck hits your account.

To start using the Budget Tracker, log in to the Online Banking dashboard then:

1. Click the ‘Create a Budget’ button under your account summaries
2. Name your budget at the top of the page
3. Choose which account you want the budget to apply to
4. Add your monthly expenses and income
5. Once you’ve added all your expenses and income, click ‘Create Budget’

That’s it! Now you can start tracking your money!

Building Credit

We offer a credit monitoring tool that is totally free to our members. You can access it right from our app under Credit Score & Report in the Track & Plan menu. We provide you with your updated credit score and report from TransUnion every 24 hours. You can view your grade in all five factors that go into determining your credit score – payment history, credit usage, account mix, credit age, and inquiries and get tips on how to improve each area. You’ll even get personalized offers for refinancing your auto loan or transferring your credit card balance to help you save on interest! Enroll today in Mobile & Online Banking.

CU@Work

We proudly offer workplace benefit services through our CU@Work Program. The program helps local businesses equip their employees with the tools they need to successfully manage their money and achieve their financial goals. The Credit Union West membership is an additional benefit that local organizations can offer to their employees at no cost. Businesses that enroll receive access to our financial education resources and up to five free training sessions with our experts on a variety of topics, all meant to educate individuals on the financial choices they face. Learn more at cuwest.org/work. 

It is our mission to help our members achieve their financial goals and we are proud to provide these free and easy tools that can help create healthy budgeting and saving habits.