Week 2

Do you remember your first time? I sure do. I was at Circuit City after having just purchased a new, not-needed automobile after trading in a gifted vehicle that ran just fine. However, said gift was not a Boysenberry Blue Ford Probe and this 19 y/o wanted a brand-new Boysenberry Blue Ford Probe. But, I digress.

I was standing in Circuit City perusing the car electronics and checking out the sweet 10-Disc CD changer with cordless remote (this was 1997 mind you), as well as a radar detector (I like to drive fast). I couldn’t tell you the price of these items, and it didn’t much matter to me as I remembered receiving SOMETHING in the mail not long after my new car purchase that I THOUGHT was a credit card. Hmmmmm. So, I drove 45 minutes back home to retrieve said envelope, returned to Circuit City shortly thereafter, and asked the salesman I had been working with if what I possessed was, in fact, a credit card. “Yes, yes it is,” was his smirked reply, knowing good and well that he was about to bank some sweet commission off of this young, naïve kid standing in front of him. And that, ladies and gentleman, was the first time I ever used a credit card.

I don’t know about you but my parents never taught me much about money. Nada, zip, zilch about credit cards and debt and budgeting. The only thing I heard time and time again is that “credit cards are the devil,” and that I should never get one – but I never knew why. The mixed messages came when this was followed up by Mom telling us that if we wanted to go shopping for school clothes we had to do it at Bacon’s since this is the store where she had a credit card herself. Talk about confusion, right? Hence began my own journey into credit card debt as a young adult.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve paid off all of my debt, only to find myself in the same boat shortly thereafter. Even though I understand now how debt and credit cards work, I find myself getting too impatient to save and wait for the things that I want. Notice I didn’t say need. This is how I ended up giving away or selling a large amount of my belongings recently, because they were things that I never really needed. I should also point out that I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my surroundings. My space (whether it’s work area, condo, house or car) has to be perfect. Everything has to look just so - knick knacks and wall art and furniture placement has to look flawless. Everything has it’s place. This mindset doesn’t mesh well when I’m trying to get, and stay, out of debt because before you know it I start to notice that the curtains aren’t exactly the shade of gray they need to be. Or the shower curtain doesn’t quite match the rug. Or that framed poster that I spent so much money on no longer looks good in that particular room. The list goes on and on.

I say all this to point out that it’s not just been a matter of not spending these last 11 days. I’ve had to accept and appreciate the things that I already have and learn to live with those things. I can already name at least three instances of having to reel myself back in when I thought that I needed to purchase yet another household item in order to make my condo immaculate. And that’s just been in the last week and half! Can you imagine the money I must’ve been sinking into these things by buying on impulse or after convincing myself I just HAD to have it rather than accepting what was around me? The odd thing is, it’s not really been that difficult not to buy the items. After a day or two passes I find out a way to figure it out (cleaned out the oil diffuser that wasn’t working properly, re-arranged the curtains I had told myself I just didn’t like). And low and behold, everything has turned out fine and I didn’t spend one dime – imagine that!

Oh… one last thing. Even though I have found myself in debt multiple times I’d like to add that I have always paid my bills on time. I’ve been lucky enough to make the kind of money needed to keep up with my monthly expenses, even if that sometimes meant paying only the minimum payments on debts. However, because so much money was going to these debts instead of into savings, retirement, etc., I found myself unable to put money towards things that I really wanted to do like travel and experiences. Throughout this process that’s just another perk that I hope to achieve after all of this – to be able to spend my hard earned cash on things that are priceless, and not just things.