Our Pockets are Heavier and Our Step is Lighter

Today is a happy day over here at our house.  This morning, I'm running the best errand ever.  In just a few hours, we'll be debt-free for the first time in our marriage.

Okay, except for our mortgage.  I don't really count that.  And except for that dark cloud of student loans, but we've got at least a year to worry about that.  So I'm not letting those rain on my parade today.

Here's our story, just in case it helps someone out there.  We both brought a tiny bit of credit card debt into our marriage.  Since we were both students for that first year, we just paid the minimum payment (we had consolidated onto one 0% interest card).  We had every intention of paying off the card (less than $1,000) with our first few 'real' paychecks.

And we totally could have.  But when we moved home and both had 'real' jobs (I was a social worker...that barely consitutes a real paycheck), we bought a house, furniture to fill it, and then financed a car.  Whoops.  We knew the credit card would still be there, and we weren't paying interest, so we just kept putting it off.

When we moved home, we set up our finances with the local Chase branch.  They went ahead and linked two new credit cards to our account 'just in case' we would overdraw on our account.  Fine, whatever.  We didn't really pay attention, because we weren't going to use them anyway.

And that wasn't the only thing we didn't pay attention to.  Despite having some fantastic financial role models in our life, we really didn't pay attention to our bank account.  We didn't go crazy or anything, but we didn't watch every penny.  Remember, we had those two credit cards linked to our account 'just in case'.

Just in case we didn't balance our checkbook.  Just in case we were stupid enough to fall into the bank's trap.  And, of course, we were.  It was amazing how quickly a $25 overdraft here and a $50 overdraft there added up.  In just one year, we took a step back and were somehow thousands of dollars in credit card debt.

And we never even carried those cards in our wallets.  We never once intentionally used them to make a purchase of any kind.  It was all bank fees.  Totally our fault, because we didn't pay enough attention.

Thankfully, we finally came to our senses.  I'm not sure what exactly kicked us in the pants, but I'll be eternally grateful that it did.  We look a long, hard look at our finances and realized that we just couldn't do it.  I was only working part-time, and we'd just found out we were pregnant with the Sunbean.

I heard an ad for a non-profit agency that works with you to overcome debt.  I made an appointment for the next day, and that was the best decision ever.  They helped us negotitate interest rates and monthly payments with the credit card companies.  We also sold the car that we had financed, and paid cash for a older car.

For the next few years, we scrimped and saved like you wouldn't believe.  We are essentially a one-income household (I only work 5 hours a week), so it got really tricky.  Here's an example:  we fed our family of three for $20 a week.  Can anyone say pasta?  We didn't have a budget for entertainment, and we just didn't spend money.  Unless we came up with some extra money (via my business or odd jobs), we didn't grab lunch on the go, stop by Starbucks (so sad), or go to a movie.  The only thing we paid that wasn't essential for survival was the 10% we tithe to our church.  And we consider that essential for survival, anyway.

That's why, less than four years later, we're making our final payment.  I wanted to blog (and facebook) about this, just in case our experience can help anyone out there.  I know we aren't alone in falling into this trap, and we want people to know that there is a way out.  We've learned a few things about money.

We now bank with a non-profit credit union.  We've tried banking with both Wells Fargo and Chase, and didn't find either putting us first.  Duh...they're in it to make money.  We love our credit union, and have found the restricted hours and other random inconveniences are well worth the benefits we recieve.

We're never, ever financing anything ever again.  Except for a house.  And the last few months of MacGyver's education.  We've learned the hard way that the only way to buy anything is with cold, hard cash.  We have a plan in place to save up for a newer car when we need one.

Crawling out of this hole was so hard, and I'm not being dramatic when I say there were many tears shed.  Despite that, though, I'm so thankful for this experience.  I'm so thankful that we could learn our tough money lessons while we are young, and before things got ridiculously out of control.  I'm thankful that we paid 100% of our debt back, because that means we're never going back to that place again.

So if you see either one of us this weekend, we'll have our perma-grin on.  And you can bet we're going out for dinner!