Financial Confidence Starts With the Basics at City Credit Union
Financial Education for Right Now
For many people, financial advice tends to skip ahead. It often centers on investing, retirement, or predictions about what the market will do next. While those conversations matter, they can feel out of reach for someone focused on covering everyday expenses, managing debt, or simply making it to the next paycheck.
This is where Pinion thinks many financial conversations miss the mark. “Everybody’s so focused on making the right investment moves for tomorrow,” Pinion says. “The people are forgetting about today, and the foundation they have to build on.”
As everyday costs rise and spending gets more convenient, that foundation has become harder to maintain, especially for households already feeling pressure. City CU’s approach to financial education begins with those daily decisions: the ones that can make money feel either manageable or overwhelming.
Financial advice is everywhere now. It pops up in our social feeds, credit repair ads, budgeting apps, buy-now-pay-later offers, and confident predictions about what people should do next. Yet for many North Texans, all that information doesn’t necessarily make money feel easier to manage. Sometimes it only makes it harder to know what to trust.
Charles Pinion knows that the way people handle money often starts at home. The Community Outreach Coordinator at City Credit Union grew up around the business; both of his parents worked in banking, and dinner-table conversations helped shape his understanding of how people make financial decisions. Now, through City CU’s free classes, workshops, and community outreach, he sees a pattern: people trying to navigate today’s economy with lessons learned decades ago.
“Most of the people that I talk with are handling their finances exactly the way their parents handled their finances,” Pinion says. “The economy is so much different than it was even five years ago.” But his work is not about judging those habits, it’s about helping people update them with guidance they can trust.
A Trusted Voice in a Noisy Money World
Pinion knows financial education works best when people feel comfortable enough to listen. His “Walks with Percy” videos, which pair everyday money advice with a healthy dose of dog-dad charm, reflect the same approach he brings to City CU’s classes and conversations: practical, plainspoken, and low on judgment.
That matters because the problem is not always a lack of information. Pinion says people know they need help, but the flood of books, online advice, quick-fix offers, and conflicting opinions can make them shut it all out. One question he hears constantly captures that frustration: “Why don’t they teach this in high school?”
City CU’s free financial education gives people a place to bring their questions without feeling like they should already know the answers. As a local, member-owned credit union, the credit union can offer guidance rooted in real conversations with North Texans, not one-size-fits-all advice or a quick-fix promise.
Learn more about City Credit Union’s financial education resources for organizations
A Better Place to Start
Pinion’s message to anyone feeling overwhelmed is the same whether he’s in a high school classroom, a manufacturing plant breakroom, or a one-on-one conversation at a branch: start where you are. Make a budget. Bring your questions. Look at the numbers with someone who isn’t trying to sell you anything. Financial confidence rarely arrives all at once. But it tends to build faster than people expect once they have the right foundation under them.
To learn more about financial education for yourself, visit City CU’s financial education calendar or click here for information about financial wellness programs for your company or organization.
By Sydni Silverstone on May 11, 2026
Practical Help, Not a Lecture
The credit union’s classes and workshops are built around the financial topics people navigate every day, including budgeting, credit, large purchases, fraud prevention, and personalized guidance for questions that don’t always fit neatly into a class title. Pinion also teaches classes introducing savings, CDs, and other tools people may consider as they get their finances on steadier ground.
His credit classes follow what he calls a “teach a man to fish” approach. “I’m not going to fix your credit for you,” he says. “I’m going to give you the tools and knowledge.” He wants people to understand how credit works and how to take the next step themselves.
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What Member-Owned Means at City CU
City Credit Union is built around members rather than customers, giving people a shared stake in a local resource designed around their financial well-being. That structure gives the education work a natural community connection.
Pinion sees parents and grandparents bring children in to open first savings accounts, and he meets members who were signed up by their own families years ago and are now doing the same for their kids. In that sense, financial education is about more than solving a problem today. It helps families pass down better tools, better questions, and more confidence. “It’s people helping people,” he says. “That’s what we were founded on.”
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What Financial Confidence Really Means
Financial confidence is not about having every answer or reaching a target balance in a savings account. At City CU, it starts with helping people build enough stability to make better choices. That might mean leaving a job that isn’t a good fit, changing a living situation or having enough savings to avoid a crisis. “It’s the ability to make choices for yourself that are positive without worrying about the money,” Pinion says. “It doesn’t mean you have to be independently wealthy.”
That’s the deeper purpose behind City CU’s financial education work. Budgeting, credit, savings, fraud prevention, and large-purchase planning may sound like separate topics. But together, they help people create more room in their lives: room to plan, recover, say no, or move toward something better without immediate financial stress making decisions for them.
Taking Education Into the Community
City CU’s reach is not limited to people who walk into a branch or find a class online. Pinion brings the message into schools, colleges, workplaces, and community spaces across North Texas, including Dallas College, Lancaster ISD, Dallas ISD, and other local organizations. “Wherever anybody will let me come talk, I’ll come talk,” he says.
That outreach changes with the audience. In one case, Pinion worked with a local manufacturing company where employees were getting caught in costly cycles, from paycheck advances to high-interest car purchases. He created a class to help them understand the pattern and begin finding a way out.
Other conversations happen with students, lifelong learners, and seniors trying to stretch a dollar in a changing economy. The setting may change, but the goal stays the same: bring practical guidance to people where they are, before small money questions become larger problems.
Explore City Credit Union's financial education calendar