I was like 80% of Americans. I was in debt bad enough that I considered bankruptcy or, if I'm being REALLY honest, bad enough that, at times, I considered suicide with the justification that my life insurance made me worth more dead than alive. There were times where I saw absolutely no way out, but today, I'm within months of being debt free.
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My first credit card was a FlexPerks Visa I got as soon as I came home from basic training. I was 19, getting my first apartment in Uptown, buying a car to replace the high school junker, so getting a credit card was the next awesome step of being an adult, right? I did OK with it for a while, my credit score was growing, so USAA sent an offer for a $16,000 credit limit card and I KNEW I was awesome. That was 2005.
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My first credit card was a FlexPerks Visa I got as soon as I came home from basic training. I was 19, getting my first apartment in Uptown, buying a car to replace the high school junker, so getting a credit card was the next awesome step of being an adult, right? I did OK with it for a while, my credit score was growing, so USAA sent an offer for a $16,000 credit limit card and I KNEW I was awesome. That was 2005.
I moved to Georgia where my husband was stationed at Ft. Stewart. A baby and living between two deployments became expensive. And in playing house, as I was totally doing at 20, I bought brand new matching nursery sets, furnished two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, we bought the best and biggest TVs, computers, Xbox, whatever we wanted. We were both kids, so neither of us wanted to reign in the fun. By my son's first birthday, we had maxed the card and I hadn't even realized that we couldn't make the $150 monthly payments because when we had to before, we just paid utilities with the credit card and used cash to pay the bill.
The low point of that debt cycle was the day I ran out of gas on our way home from church with my infant. My card was declined, and pregnant in my dress and kitten heels, I had to carry my baby home a mile and a half to dig in our piggy bank and come back to buy a couple gallons to get the car back. That made me mad enough to make a change.
The low point of that debt cycle was the day I ran out of gas on our way home from church with my infant. My card was declined, and pregnant in my dress and kitten heels, I had to carry my baby home a mile and a half to dig in our piggy bank and come back to buy a couple gallons to get the car back. That made me mad enough to make a change.
So when he deployed the second time, I set on digging out of that hole. We sold everything in Georgia, I moved back home with two kids and lived with mom for free for a year, we put all of his checks and mine at the debt. I worked part time and paid my sister to watch the kids, so with two incomes, we paid down the card and cash-flowed our move. I didn't want to make those same mistakes, so lots of craigslist purchases and gradual growth, put us in good shape. By the time my husband got out of the military in 2008, both of us 23 years old, we were debt free homeowners and everything looked great.
We coasted on that for a bit, adjusted to just one full time income when he got out, and celebrated with a trip to Japan. An international trip we couldn't afford was the second spiral down the debt hole for us.
Japan put us in a whole new YOLO mindset. 5 star hotels, crazy expensive sushi, fugu, ferries, clothes, whatever we wanted because when would we ever be there again?! There was no budget, I had no idea what we were spending (or that it all came with international fees) on our new $24,000 credit limit card that we qualified for before we left.
When we came home, it didn't stop. That vacation mindset was addictive. We got the newest games when they came out, got new clothes or furniture when I was bored with our secondhand stuff because when else could we set up our lives like this? YOLO!
When we came home, it didn't stop. That vacation mindset was addictive. We got the newest games when they came out, got new clothes or furniture when I was bored with our secondhand stuff because when else could we set up our lives like this? YOLO!
Combine that with a $10,000 car loan for my dream Honda CR-V that is now breaking down more every day; $17,000 of student loans that I didn't need (the Army, Pell Grant, and Indian tribe paid my tuition....loan was just for deferred interest fun); and a $12,000 personal loan I grabbed to pay down the $44,000 credit card debt we accrued across 7 different credit cards, but ended up just spending more on ourselves. That all happened between 2010 and 2013. I kept telling myself, once I finished grad school we'd start on the debt and really focus.
So on my graduation day in June 2013, I had a government job making $50,000 and finally sat down and figured out that, all together, we owed $77,000 of debt. I spent the next 3 years making minimum payments, requesting loan forbearance, defaulting on unexpected medical bills, borrowing money from family, donating plasma and driving Uber to keep the lights on, and praying I had enough in the bank to buy groceries AND still get drinks with the girls on Friday night so no one would know how bad it was.
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My sister is the one who started on Dave Ramsey. She had graduated from college in Denver a few years before, bought a house and started chipping away at her private college debt pretty hard. I watched her and kind of thought I could maybe do something like that, but I didn't get dedicated until about 2 years ago.
It was after my divorce when I was truly a struggling single mom that the debt was the primary driver of my depression and I realized it could kill me if I didn't change. I asked for help and my sister gave me her Dave dics, mom helped bump my credit score up, and the first BIG push was that I qualified for a cash-out refinance on my home to get my head above water. I was sad to see my home equity depleted, but I paid off all of my overdue bills and closed credit cards, paid off my student loan in full, and finally felt like I could breathe. From there, I created a budget to handle the remaining $27,000, most of which was from that old credit card we used in Japan.
I chipped away for a year before I got, what Dave calls "gazelle-intense" in January 2019. At the start of the year, my balance was $24,000, so I knew if I could pay $2,000 per month just toward debt and be clear within the year. I squeezed the budget again, minimized and sold things online, increased my part time job workload, took on every travel assignment that would give me extra money at the day job, and EVEN with adding braces and private school tuition, I've paid off $14,000 more and I'm exactly on track to be debt free in December. I can actually see a future where I can save for my kids' college, have a good amount in retirement in 30 years, and afford to go back to Japan on cash instead of credit someday.
I know a lot of my friends are in the same boat, even if I don't know it because you hide it so well. I cannot tell you enough how much weight has been lifted off of me that I had been so used to carrying. How unobstructed and bright my future, and my kids' future, looks without debt to hold us back. Even when I was managing it well and it wasn't crushing me, it was still a weight I dragged behind me when I never needed to. I know Dave Ramsey sounds extreme to some, but I absolutely credit his program with saving my life and I will be forever grateful for that.
I turned this around as a single mom, never making more than $60,000 with all my jobs. If I can do it, you can too. If you want help, please just ask. I am all about screaming it from the rooftops, taking the time to teach the principles, and I wish for this kind of peace and freedom on everyone who needs it.
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My sister is the one who started on Dave Ramsey. She had graduated from college in Denver a few years before, bought a house and started chipping away at her private college debt pretty hard. I watched her and kind of thought I could maybe do something like that, but I didn't get dedicated until about 2 years ago.It was after my divorce when I was truly a struggling single mom that the debt was the primary driver of my depression and I realized it could kill me if I didn't change. I asked for help and my sister gave me her Dave dics, mom helped bump my credit score up, and the first BIG push was that I qualified for a cash-out refinance on my home to get my head above water. I was sad to see my home equity depleted, but I paid off all of my overdue bills and closed credit cards, paid off my student loan in full, and finally felt like I could breathe. From there, I created a budget to handle the remaining $27,000, most of which was from that old credit card we used in Japan.
I chipped away for a year before I got, what Dave calls "gazelle-intense" in January 2019. At the start of the year, my balance was $24,000, so I knew if I could pay $2,000 per month just toward debt and be clear within the year. I squeezed the budget again, minimized and sold things online, increased my part time job workload, took on every travel assignment that would give me extra money at the day job, and EVEN with adding braces and private school tuition, I've paid off $14,000 more and I'm exactly on track to be debt free in December. I can actually see a future where I can save for my kids' college, have a good amount in retirement in 30 years, and afford to go back to Japan on cash instead of credit someday.
I know a lot of my friends are in the same boat, even if I don't know it because you hide it so well. I cannot tell you enough how much weight has been lifted off of me that I had been so used to carrying. How unobstructed and bright my future, and my kids' future, looks without debt to hold us back. Even when I was managing it well and it wasn't crushing me, it was still a weight I dragged behind me when I never needed to. I know Dave Ramsey sounds extreme to some, but I absolutely credit his program with saving my life and I will be forever grateful for that.
I turned this around as a single mom, never making more than $60,000 with all my jobs. If I can do it, you can too. If you want help, please just ask. I am all about screaming it from the rooftops, taking the time to teach the principles, and I wish for this kind of peace and freedom on everyone who needs it.
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