About a year ago I had thought I’d hit rock bottom with money.
I was stressed out, in major debt, and had no idea how I was going to handle anything.
As a business owner I decided it was time to get a job and I went on the hunt (kind of). Over time my business picked back up and I dropped the job hunt idea and kept moving forward.
At that time I made the decision:
“That’s IT! I’m so done with this!”
I thought it would stick.
I thought it would be all uphill from there.
But I was oh so wrong.
It wasn’t the rock bottom, either.
You see I was so sick of struggling with money and being in debt and never seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
I truly was.
But, I couldn’t just turn this tanker truck around on a dime.
The first decision I made was to STOP the cycle of using debt to pay for debt.
This was a cycle I had been in for 30 YEARS at that point.
I’d get into debt and just get more debt (credit cards) to supplement the lack of money I had/wanted/needed.
When the credit cards grew to be too much to manage then I’d get a consolidation loan and start working to pay that off.
In the meantime I’d go about SIX MONTHS or so with no debt.
Yay! I’m out of the woods!.. I’d think.
But, nope.
Few months later something goes wrong or I need some money or I want some money and I start throwing things on the card.
And so it begins again….
Throw out the cards you say.
YES – I should have.
But I didn’t.
And here we are.
30+ years later.
THIS is the thing a money coach who tells you to consolidate has ZERO understanding of.
You can’t fix a money problem with debt consolidation IF you don’t fix the reasons you got into debt in the first place.
If you try you just give yourself a whole playground of credit cards to start the cycle all over again!
I have lost count of how many times I’ve done this cycle but if I had to guess it’s every 3-5 years and probably 8-10 times.
The thing that changed:
This time I said… NO BAILING OUT.
NO consolidation.
I have to fix the problem creating the debt.
And so began my decent towards more rock bottom money.
Because when you give yourself no bail out and you still haven’t fixed the problem then the problem gets bigger, more obvious, more of a problem you can not ignore!
So here I am today dealing with the mess.
No quick cash to whip it up into a nice cleanup.
The mess.
Sitting with it.
Living in it.
And trying to find my way through it.
I will update you as I go.
Signed,
A Debt Blogger
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