January 13, 2011

Debt Talk

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I'm in a great mood because I just put a decent chunk of money on my credit card. I know that could change when the next bill rolls in, but for the moment, I feel financially responsible.

If you've been reading a while, you may remember that I love organizing and financial planning. Both those things are funny because while I may be organized, I'm not tidy, and while I may love financial planning, I'm bad at math. So I'm messy (but I label everything!), and very good at planning money (as long as I don't have to do multiplication).

I bring this up because a year ago, when I was finding my house and making plans to buy it, I was super on top of things. I had lists, I had savings, and I was having a great time. As often happens with house purchases, I didn't factor in a bunch of stuff when I was getting organized, and all my great lists went to shit.

I blame most of this on the renovations going over budget, the fact that we barely had a budget to begin with, and the fact that we were trying to do everything on one income. When my BH graduated and jobs weren't immediately rolling in, my stress hit the roof, and the following thing happened:

On payday, my mortgage would come out, my bills would come out, and my loan payment would come out.

Then I'd have about $100 for two weeks, with two adults, two dogs, groceries, and everything else that comes up in life.

This is a really roundabout way of explaining why my credit card got so out of hand.

It's funny because, as a financial planning geek, I could see what was happening. Obviously I didn't want to put anything new on the card, but short of living off lentils and avoiding all our friends, we would need to spend money here and there. We just held out hope that my BH would be able to find a good job, and then we'd tackle the mess.

Now my BH is working, and with his contributions, I have been able to dump money onto that card like you wouldn't believe. It feels so nice, and I'm going to keep it up until it's gone. Then I'm going to destroy my debt. Hear that, debt? I'm gonna fuck you up.

Yeah.

The End.

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