This article is reprinted by permission from NerdWallet. Not many people run three different businesses while also working a high-stress government job and raising three kids. Whitmore Merrick is one of the few.
The Washington, D.C., native, who now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, works full time as a peer navigator for the city’s Home to Hope program, connecting formerly incarcerated people to housing, transportation and other resources. He also runs a fast-growing transportation company, Merrick Adventures, and has co-founded a recording studio and a clothing line. At his day job, Merrick helps people transition into post-incarceration life, in part by helping them improve their financial literacy. “There are so many barriers for individuals who have been convicted of misdemeanors or felonies,” Merrick says. He’s also teaching his kids financial skills and working to create a better future for them. Here’s what Merrick is doing to build generational wealth.What inspired you to start building generational wealth? Merrick says that one of his biggest motivations to build generational wealth was growing up without it in a single-parent household. “Not having a father in the home inspired me to be a man, young,” Merrick says. “It forced me to grow quicker than I feel I should have.” Merrick notes that the hardships he watched his mother experience didn’t happen in a vacuum. They were, in many ways, a product of the systemic racism that economically disenfranchises Black Americans. “There are lots of different ways that we were stripped from wealth,” he says. In addition, Merrick says his own past financial blunders have motivated him to start teaching his kids about money early. “I remember, for periods of time, not monitoring my checking account or my credit score. And I regret not doing that, because it just gets worse,” he says. Today, he’s doing what he can to give his kids — the oldest of whom recently turned 15 — a different story. Learn more: What is generational …