I am so honored to be guest posting over at Money Saving Mom! I just love Crystal and find her to be one of the most encouraging bloggers out there!
A few years ago I realized that I had allowed my family and me to sink back into the depths of credit card debt.
“How did I let this happen? I know better than this. I swore I would never end up here again, what happened?”
This was my inner dialogue as I tried to figure out how I allowed us to get sucked in by the debt monster once again. Back when I was twenty-one years old, I was in such financial trouble that I was near bankruptcy due to credit cards. I truly knew better than to allow the “buy now, pay later” game to suck me, but it did, again.
I am still not sure how it happened; maybe it was out of fear that we would not be able to afford all those “must-haves” when you become parents for the first time. Maybe it was because we desperately needed that vacation to Mexico, or maybe I was just turning a blind eye because that was easier to deal with.
We were not only slowly sinking deep in credit card debt, but that fully-loaded Tahoe that we just had to have because we were now parents and apparently you cannot drive anything other than a four-door SUV when baby arrives, was putting us even deeper in the hole. Oh, and then that shiny piece of paper hanging in my home office declaring that I am capable of balancing the books for a business was about to have to paid back to the tune of $30,000.
Yep, we were deep in the red and the inner accountant in me was screaming bloody murder at the foolishness I had allowed to happen. Something had to be done because we were going to be broke soon if we did nothing.
I pulled up all our financial statements – credit cards, checking account, savings accounts, Tahoe loan information, and my student loan information. I spent hours tediously combing through them in order to figure out how long it would realistically take us to pay off these debts with my husband’s current income and our current budget.
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Great post! Such an encouraging story!
Congrats on the feature at Money Saving Mom. 🙂
Thank you Emily! 🙂
Wow, congrats on posting with Money Saving Mom! Great post to inspire people to get out of debt. Thanks for sharing with Small Victories Sunday linkup.
I know how hard it is to get off the debt roller coaster! It’s important to realize that just because you’re in a good place at the moment doesn’t mean you won’t be struggling later if you don’t stick with your plan! Great post!
I think many people are afraid to actually face-off with the magnitude of their total debt. The first step is to organize your bills and come to terms with them, just as you did. Many people do not even know what they owe.