my story

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-21-2004
my story
4
Wed, 10-05-2005 - 9:40am

ok, i don't post here that often, but I wanted to give you all my story. I need to share and really start posting here more often. I went through some of my old posts and shannoninmind was right, by reading those few posts it may seem like we are not making sacrfices. (i posted twice about slip ups we had, once going out to dinner and once going to a fair.. Those were two very rare outings, belive me. I apologize if it gave anyone the idea that we were not sacrificing to get out of debt) We are struggling, but to be honest we are in a much better place than we were three years ago. here is my story.

dh and i moved in together in 1997. We were 19 and went nuts charging stuff, furniture, clothes, gifts, vacations, everything. we blew money like we were millionaires. Totally stupid, and it was a huge mistake, but I own that mistake. I also came into the relationship with about 2k in student loans and credit card debt. Dh bought a new car. dh bought a motorcycle. All this mess before we were even twenty. Then we got married and charged our honeymoon. we created about 15k in just credit card debt. not to mention, the car.

so , we puttered along, paying minimums and buying whatever we wanted until reality struck! we had our daughter and we realized we wanted a better life. We began a serious debt reduction plan, thanks to lurking on this board. dh decided to go back to school (he was working as a milkman at the time). i began working from home full time. Then dh was offered the chance of a lifetime to work for a government contrator that worked in the homeland security sector. it was for less pay, but we knew he would quickly move up the ladder. this was an amazing opportunity for someone who didn't even have a degree yet. Plus, they offered to pay for school. SO we decided to take a chance and take it. Little did we know when he put in his notice at the dairy that his boss would blow a gasket and kick us out of our rental home (we did not have a "formal" lease, but had lived there for five years.) at the same time, dh's mom had a severe heart attack and stroke and we had to fly to florida and had to charge some expenses. When we returned, we were kicked out and had to move in with my parents. Dh immediatly got a second job, and began working his butt off. I kept my work at home job but also picked up a house cleaning job. We eventually bought a house, with no money down. our mortgage payment is not much more than our rent was. I quit my full time job for awhile,because i thought my daughter was suffering for it (I still think that, actually, but I am trying to work on that). Dh worked about 80 a week during the summer and when school started back up he had to reduce his second job to about 12-15 hours a week) I have taken back my full time job but negotiated for more money. We did however fall behind the past two months because of some unexpected expenses, like our electric was over 300 dollars this month. (and yes, i have started hanging clothes out to dry and stopped the air conditioning, full stop!) and we also had to pay for the furniture we had to buy(200 dollars from a friend. we did not have anthing to sit on, literally!! we had to get rid of our old furniture when we moved in with my parents) so, basically we are just trying to catch up this month and then start the debt snowball after we get a good emergency fund, about 500. We did splurge on the fair and going out to eat twice , but i am sure everyone slips up sometimes right? i know we are on the right path, we just have to get a good running start!! thanks so much everyone encouraging me and my family to change our lives.

kel

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-19-2003
In reply to: bookwormkel
Wed, 10-05-2005 - 10:13am

Kel,

Honestly your paragraph, that started with "Dh and I moved in with each other in 97". Yeah thats about the same first paragraph of our story. Except I wish my husband had just bought a $15k car. Oh no, we have to buy the $40k truck, the $30k suv, several ATVS, motorcycles, the exotic vacations, a house in a great area that requires 2 incomes... I could go on and on.

Shannon


Pregnancy%20ticker
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-26-2004
In reply to: bookwormkel
Wed, 10-05-2005 - 1:02pm

Kel,

That sounds about like my story, except DH & I got married in 98 instead of 97! But you are doing better than me, since I ended up having to declare bankruptcy this year!

Joy

Photobucket
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-06-2003
In reply to: bookwormkel
Wed, 10-05-2005 - 8:02pm

Hi Kel,

Thank you for sharing your story! After we bought our house this year we went from $0 to $8K of debt but we are dealing with it head-on as you will with your debt.

Keep posting here, both the good and not so good moments. No one here will think less of you and the support you'll continue to receive is phenomenal!
You're right in that everyone slips up, the thing is to take notice, learn from it and then quickly get right back on the plan...don't let a second slip occur after the first slip because it quickly become a very slippery slope and the damage just gets bigger to clean up afterwards :)

Regards,
Kassandra

Kassandra

"It is said that life has its peaks and valleys.  The challenge is to accept them equally and experience them

Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: bookwormkel
Thu, 10-06-2005 - 10:00am

Hi Kel - thanks so much for posting your story!


You know - while there may be people out there who believe that one should completely and totally dedicate to debt reduction without any fun splurges from time to time - I am absolutely not one of them.

All my best,
Danni