When it Comes to Money...

This is a huge post for me. I don't like talking about money but I’m putting myself out there, not just for myself, but for some friends of mine who I feel are struggling right now – and might not even know it. While I hope everyone reads this, I really, really hope those friends read this. Even if they remember just one good thing that came of it, I’ll be happy. So, if you have started reading, please continue until the end, if not for you, then for me - just to hear my story.

This is my story about what I did to get out of a financial nightmare, caused by me.

Today I’ve been thinking about money. I have always been a spender, I never worried about where my next dollar would come from. When I was a kid, I got an allowance and was treated well by my parents. I was never spoiled, but I had a lot of stuff. When I was a teenager, I got a job and spent every single penny I ever made on stuff. I treated myself to a lot of things, not thinking about saving it or putting it towards something for someone else. In college, I had an allowance for food and a job to cover incidentals.

One day, someone at my school was offering a free pizza if you signed up for their credit card. Why not, I thought, I like free stuff.  I got a credit card. Then, I got another credit card. And a department store card. And then another one. Before I knew it, I had 18 credit cards in my name. I was 20 years old. For most of the cards, I didn't know where they were but I knew I could go to the store and they could look them up with my ID. I thought that was a genius idea!

About what my stack looked like.

Then the bills started coming in. Pretty soon, I couldn’t keep up. Guess what? It didn’t stop me from spending money. It didn't sink in that if I stopped spending money, I could probably pay off what I had already spent. I always was really good with math...

I couldn’t make my minimum payments.

I knew my parents would help me if I asked, but I was too proud to ask. Finally, I gave in to the late night infomercials for Credit Counseling. 

They looked at my paycheck and my monthly bills, lumped all of the cards together and gave me a minimum payment for all of them. That was difficult and a really, really bad idea. I was struggling and didn’t know what else to do. I moved to another state for another job and there, I was making even less money than I was after college. I was broke. I ate noodles and sauce and drank a lot of beer. For a 21 year old, 10 hours from home, beer is an obvious priority.

I was still having trouble scraping pennies together to send to the credit counseling agency so, I started pawning stuff off. My parents bought me a video camera when I was in college for my TV classes, I pawned it. I pawned other things as well, but I have conveniently forgotten all of the other things. I am so embarrassed that I got rid of even one of my possessions by selling them to a pawn shop. 

One day, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I broke down to my Dad. I begged and pleaded that he didn’t tell my Mom. I am not sure if she knows to this day. He wrote me a check to pay off my creditors. He bailed me out. I promised I would never do it again.

Fast forward a few years, a better job, more money coming in. I get another credit card because I'm older now, wiser, I can control my spending. Then I got another one. And then…another one. I meet this great guy who has absolutely no clue what this woman he is dating is hiding. I really believe I was a shopaholic. I couldn’t stop myself from buying stuff. This great guy and I, we dated for many years. I bought a house and sold that house when he bought our current house. I put a bunch of money from the sale of my house towards my credit card debt (I did not pay it off). I squandered away the rest of it. I was like a drug addict who just couldn’t stop buying and using drugs. Money was my drug.

I had spoken to a good friend of mine quite a few times about money and credit cards and debt. She suggested I try a class with her. The class was for Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University and the classes were held at her non-denominational church.

I balked at it. I do not want some preacher on his high horse telling me that I was wrong and God was going to condemn me for having spent so much, so frivolously. I asked around to see if people had heard about him. I didn’t get a great response. Most people were very, very negative about this guy, Dave Ramsey.

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I really did respect this friend of mine though, so I went to the class with her. I realized the class was not held by a preacher at the church but by someone who had been through the class before. The class was a recorded show of Dave Ramsey doing his FPU class live. This Dave Ramsey guy didn't seem too bad. For him it all started when he had too much money, lost it all, claimed bankrupsy and made his way out of that –while keeping his family in tact.

I learned things in this class. I learned that everyone should have an “emergency fund” that is not a credit card. The Emergency Fund is only used for emergencies. Did your car break down? Use it. Hungry and want to eat out but you have no cash? Don’t even think about using that Emergency Fund. Go home and eat cheese and crackers or beans and rice. Whatever. The Emergency Fund is for those times when life sneaks up and bites you in the rear end.

My friend kept telling me I had to tell the great guy about my debt. I couldn’t face it. Then one day, I was working on one of the spreadsheets in our shared home office and he walked in. I left my debt snowball worksheet up on the computer. He saw it and asked me if this was just a scenario. Nope, that very large number he saw on that spreadsheet was what I currently had in credit card debt. If I had saved the money that was on those credit cards, I could have had a really nice, brand new car.

This was exactly 10 years after my Dad bailed me out.  It did not include the debt I had in my car and in our household furniture (you know the ones - 0% financing for 3 years)!

He. Freaked. Out.

He did not leave me. He did have a hard time dealing with the fact that for 5 years, I hid this from him.

We got through it.

I put my mind to it and started sending more money than I ever imagined I could to the debt. My company put us on 30% furlough, I continued sending the same amount to the debt.

I got a part time job (that sucked).

I sold stuff.

I made stuff to sell.

I stopped shopping.

My closet was no where near this fantastic when I stopped shopping.

I equated it to someone who quits smoking. You have to remove your temptations to stop. A smoker can't go into a smoky bar and drink a beer or she will crave that cigarette. A shopaholic can't go into a store or they'll crave to buy something. I stopped going to the mall, to Target, to Pier One. All of my "trigger" stores.

The great guy and I ended up getting married in October 2010. He believed in me. He supported me through it all. He held my hand when I was sad about not being able to go away with friends. He helped me figure out tough situations when I had a financial emergency. He told me how PROUD of me he was for working so hard on the debt. He did not pay off my debt for me. Not one cent. I was too proud to ask for help and I feel much better for paying it off on my own.

I bailed myself out this time. No one helped me pay off that debt. I created the debt, I got out of it on my own - doing it the honest and right way.

In February 2011, I was officially credit card and furniture debt free. It took me 19 months, but I did it! I still have a car payment, which I am paying more to each month to get it paid off by early next year. We still have our mortgage – we are ok with that. The mortgage on our home is part of our investment in our future.

Every dollar I spend these days is spent with cash in my wallet or money in my bank account. 

I thank my lucky stars that when I met that great guy, he convinced me to start saving for retirement. Even though I had a ton of money in debt, I have a lot more in my retirement savings. Now that we're married, my husband and I are both putting a lot of our paychecks each month into our savings accounts. We are also putting a lot of our paychecks into our 401k’s. We are doing everything we can to prepare for that emergency that might sneak up on us, but we are also planning for our future. We're saving for the child we hope to have one day. We're saving, knowing we don't want to be working as a Walmart greeter when we're 87 years old.

In case you were wondering, I do give myself some play money each month. I did this while I was paying off debt, too. When I was paying off the debt, I gave myself just $50/mo for fun - movies, dinners out, drinks after work. Now I upped that a little now because I have the means to do it.  I also put money into savings accounts to buy the big things I want - like scrapbooking trips, electronics, clothes, etc. 

I have not had a credit card since August 1^st 2009. It may not be the right way for everyone, but it's the right way for me. Tonight I'm going back to another Dave Ramsey FPU class. It worked for me, so I'm going back to get motivated again. That same friend I mentioned before is leading the class now. I'm so proud of her for doing that and thankful every day for her motivation to get up and do something about my problem.

I can only hope that this post makes someone else think a little about it, too. All you need is one person to be your support system (I had two - my friend Christy and my now-husband). They help you realize paying off those debts is going to make your life a much better existence. They will be there for you when you want to spend money you don't have, or money you shouldn't be spending. They won't pressure you into buying something you don't really need and will help you rationalize not buying it. They'll eat at your house or invite you over for dinner and they'll encourage you all the way through. Once you paid off your debt, they'll help you as you still struggle to save money every month and not spend it just because it's there.

I am no longer a prisoner to debt.


Talk about freedom.