by Claire
I can’t spend anymore time dwelling on how I got here–that tendency has held me back from improving the situation for too long. It crossed my mind today as I saw a tv commercial for “The Biggest Loser” that this show illustrates my relationship and challenges with debt! I’ve never had a weight problem and have been blessed with a good metabolism. I do know and love many people who struggle managing their weight and I’ve always been their biggest cheerleader showing support as they faced their battle with food and exercise. I appreciate the comment that someone made re: the negative comments to my blog being similar to people who make negative comments toward the heavy person at the gym. The important thing is that the person is there trying!
If only I could apply that metabolism to my financial habits. I do not know how it got so out of control and it isn’t important to spend time dissecting that ad nauseum. I must look forward and make good decisions from this day forward. I do understand the importance of learning from my mistakes so that I do not repeat them but what I am talking about here is that overkill of questioning “how? how? how?”
I envy people who are just naturally thrifty. I have a few of these folks in my family…who seem to be able to stretch a dollar far beyond the distance I am able to stretch that same dollar. 🙁 I am already looking forward to the day where the thrifty thought is the first thought instead of where I currently am…where it just takes a little more thinking to get to the thrifty thought. It sort of feels like I am writing with my left hand when my right hand is dominant. This has to be what an alcoholic has to deal with too—that feeling of never being able to get there and the overwhelming reality of the core changes that have to not only happen…but take root.
Okay! Enough heaviness. Let’s look forward…the next post will be about the trip I did already end up taking with my husband. I think some of you might be proud of me. 🙂
Born and raised in Texas. I’ve at least driven through every state in the US courtesy of a roadtrip loving Dad.
I’m single with two children and a good parenting relationship with their father.
I am a “life is just half full of funny” kinda gal. Humor is my saving grace and I am thankful for it every single day. I have a strong Catholic faith and am thankful for that foundation.
I read a lot for a living but still enjoy a good book. I love biographies but in recent years have found the need for fun fictional books–sadly, for a long time I just didn’t enjoy fiction!
I love live theatre of any kind–from local productions to Broadway.
I love to scrapbook and pride myself in my kids’ albums.
I love being a mom but also love my career. I’m blessed to have found a balance allowing me to be at everything my kids need and want me to be at–while also having a career.
Favorite Quotes: Well behaved women rarely make history.
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. -James Bryant Conant
Now that’s interesting food for thought – naturally thrifty thoughts! I don’t think it’s a major jump in the thinking pattern, it’s just thinking, period, before you buy. Like “if I buy X, I can’t finish paying off Y.” If I buy X, then I’ll have 4 Xs and that’s just silly, I only need 1. If I buy this, I can’t have that. The more time you spend on finances, the more it will be at the top of your mind and this will come naturally.
I think taking the trip was the right thing. My fiance and I are going on a cruise for our wedding/honeymoon despite the $250K of debt between us. We would rather pay down debt at a slower pace and still be able to live our lives than we would cutting everything to the bone and hating our existence for the next 10-20 years. My mom died of a genetic illness (which I have a 50% chance of having) when she was 46, so I’m certainly not willing to put things off to a day when I could very well be quadriplegic or wrose.
I do think it is important to know how you got there. Not the part where you overspent….you already know that. But WHY you overspent.
You have to be able to make habitual changes, or you will end up right back where you started. It isn’t a “diet” where you can just cut back and lose the weight. As soon as you quit dieting, you gain the weight back.
I am not saying dwell on it…but you do need to know why it happened.
@Mysti
You’re so right. You have to recognize the state of mind you were in when you made those decisions so that if that ever comes up again, you’ll know how to respond without going further into debt.
I think it’s important at some point to decide to stop dwelling on the past and move forward but like you stated, it’s equally important to realize how you got there to be sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes. Sometimes it’s not just as easy as ‘I eat out too much’ either. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out the real reason you ate out so much that you went into debt to do it. Assuming you’ve dealt with all that stuff though then I think you’re right that at some point you have to forgive yourself, decide to do better and move forward.
I haven’t been reading the comments, but it sounds like you’ve been getting a lot of “holier than thou” comments where people think they’re all that and a bag of chips because they’re finances are squeaky clean. These are probably the same people who forgo life experiences just so they can say they’re saving $2500 a year by not going on vacation.
You know, everyone makes mistakes. As long as we learn from then and move forward. Managing your finances is a lifetime challenge, just like weight gain and weight loss. We all go through ups and downs. You’ve recognized the problem and you’re moving forward. Good for you!
Yay! Thanks for saying out loud what has been in my head for several days. I recently lost my mother after a long, long deteroriating illness. She regretted so much, and I do not want to be that way. But the flip side of that coin is that I need to be a lot more responsible in how I indulge myself and my family. I’m glad Claire went on the trip — it is sort of like being on a diet — except as one who has dieted the majority of her adult life, I can tell you that no diet works until you make a lifestyle change. That lifestyle change MUST include room to indulge at some point — but it has to be done in moderation. Getting out of debt is also a lifestyle change and it begins one step at a time. If you don’t leave any room for any kind of indulgence, you will begin to resent the process and it backfires on you. Again — indulging can (and definitely should) be done in moderation! Thanks for being so candid, Claire!!
The whole point of trying to blog away your debt is that you obviously didn’t know a few things about money. Yeah, there are tons of us who are also in that situation. You’re right to recognize those who are quick to judge. It’s so much easier to be harsh or condescending with someone when all you’re doing is typing to them. I doubt many of those folks would have had the same thing to say face to face.
I have been reading personal finance blogs for probably over two years now and I have learned so much. I do see a change in my thinking. It’s been gradual, but it’s there.
Stay motivated, stay encouraged and stay positive. You’ll get there.
Changing your spending habits is very much like changing your eating habits. It’s a change of mindset. Many times people with weight issues eat simply because they get enjoyment out of it and it isn’t until their jeans no longer fit that they realize it is an issue. Many people spend because it is fun to have new toys, new cars, new home decor and again it isn’t until they can no longer pay the credit card bills that they realize they have a serious problem. Most everyone is addicted to something – food, alcohol, spending, drugs, whatever.
I’ve battled the weight problem by taking it one day at a time and I know I can tackle the debt by taking it one day at a time, and so can you Claire.
Don’t let the negative nancy’s get you down. You know where you are and where you want to be. Keep that in sight and know that it’s do-able. Nothing else matters.
“negative nancy’s” Great title for all the negative commenters. I love that!
I like it too. It’s just one of those terms passed down the family.
That’s why for me, keeping a spreadsheet listing all of my debts is a critical motivational tool.
Each month, I enter in the “ending balance” for each credit card. I have formulas that add up the total debt, the difference between last month’s debt and this month’s, and for each card I calculate the decrease (or occasional (GASP!) increase).
I then graph the overall total of debt in a line chart (yeah…I’m kind of fixated on data).
I have data going back to the early 2000’s, and it is exciting for me to see the total going down each month. Even if I just pay the minimums, the total still goes down. Even when I’ve had a bad month, it is an emotional boost to see that we are now $500-$1,000 LESS in debt than the previous month.
Even more exciting, I can look at the graph and see how far “back in time” I’m travelling with our debt. Right now, we owe less debt than we did back in August of 2005 after hitting our highest point in April of 2009.
I’d be happy to send my spreadsheet to you (or any other readers), just shoot me an email and I’ll send it to you.
Your spreadsheet approach reminds of the advice to those trying to lose weight to track their progress! 🙂 Sometimes I magine this can be discouraging if you’re making slow progress, but if you can take the long view and see how far you’ve come after a few years then that would be a huge boost!
I think one of the keys here to is be patient. To paraphrase FlyLady (a woman who helps us clutterbugs with cleaning up our homes) your debt wasn’t created overnight, so you’re not going to get rid of it overnight! (Unless you win the lottery… 😉 )
You are doing great Claire, dwelling on the past too long can kind of be like one of those animal traps, once stuck you have to gnaw your leg off in order to move forward!
Keeping your eye on the horizon is a great thing but remember it is not the destination but rather the journey itself that is important. Make each day about TODAY creating breathless momments that take your breath away and each day will get easier!
Keep on truckin, your doing good and heading in the right direction!
I think it is a mistake to try to cast those who give critical advice as “negative nancy’s”. Part of blogging honestly is understanding that when you put a situation out for other people to see – you are going to get push back on what you have shared.
If your spending choices were already good – you wouldn’t be in the position you find yourself in – $100K in debt.
Now, it is natural to get defensive when someone else calls you on things that you have probably explained to yourself and justified. However, the best thing you can do when you get critical comments is to step back and try to read them without defensiveness. Change the tone in which you read them. Think about how you would feel if it was your best friend saying the comment in her/his most loving tone.
And realize when you start to get defensive in the tone of your response that it can come off like the people on Maury Povich who scream, “You don’t know MEEE!” when audience members call them on their bad decisions, or choices that do have more than one option.
You are blogging away the debt that you and your husband created. You did mess up big time, and we don’t need to read 10,000 pages to know that when you hold $100K in debt.
You are now taking control of the situation. Bravo! Realize that those who have commented critically want to see you succeed. Realize that most of us have had to learn how to take charge of our own finances. We’ve done all the same justifying, all the same defensiveness when call on our own rationalizations. And that other people’s critical eye helped us move beyond living the way we did (and thought was right) to living in a way that allowed us to paid off our debt and have money to spare.
Paying off debt will require you to change how you prioritize your spending and what is important. It will also require you to buckle down and really acknowledge your mistakes. If you spend your time trying to justify why blog commenters are wrong, rather than try to see how those impartial commenters came to their conclusions – you are losing some valuable information.
Now, I am sure there will be some nasty trolls at some point in your internet journey. But people who call you on bad decisions does not equal “troll” or “negative nancy”. Listen non-defensively, take what can be helpful, and let the rest go. If you really don’t agree with the comment – just ignore it. If you know it is totally wrong – let it go without another thought.
Good luck, I can’t wait to read more about how you plan to tackle paying down the debts you have. I am very curious to see what type of pay off plan you are going to use! 🙂
You make very good points, Sasha, but I would add that between the trolls and the constructive criticisms there are those who are unnecessarily harsh in their criticism. It’s one thing to say, “Perhaps you could cut back on X expense” versus, “You’re never going to get anywhere if you keep spending money on X!” For all we know on the internet there could be a very valid reason for X!
For example, I don’t think Beks ever told us how much her mortgage was because it was really high, but she also lives in San Diego, where housing costs are pretty high. Likewise, if I just told you all how much I pay in housing some would start jumping all over me saying I pay too much, but considering where I live what I pay is pretty reasonable.
Jen I think you make a great point. And I think it is important (as a blogger) to know where your information limits are going to be. If you don’t want commentary on your food budget – don’t break it out for people. If you think your spending is under control in one area – say that without a lot of detail. We each need to figure out what is important to share and what doesn’t add anything if shared.
Perhaps Claire might want to figure out how she is going to pay down her debt, and show us that instead of showing the minutiae of her spending at present time. I do know that some expenses just don’t translate to people not living the same lifestyle. Those might be the ones that don’t get shared (like Beks’ mortgage).
Unless Claire’s spending is an issue still, she might not want to share it. Because while she might think that $1600 a month is a reasonable budget for their family’s non-mortgage/non-utility/non-insurance expenses, a lot of people are going to think that is a huge amount of money to spend on that category. And then tell her how they think she should cut it down.
It might be more illustrative to tell us how much the monthly payments are to service the debt they hold, and what strategies she is going to use to tackle those debts. Will she try to refinance the cars to lower interest rates (as the cars represent $40K of debt? Is she going to snowball her lowest debt? What is the average interest rate on all her debt? Those are questions that give us more insight into the debt without getting into what she is currently spending.
True, getting details about her plan to reducwe debt would be good, but I don’t know if she’s gotten that far in the process. It sounds like she and her husband have been at this for only three months, and right now they’re focusing on managing current expenses to avoid adding more debt.
Perhaps we were spoiled by Beks who seemed to already have a plan when she started blogging here. I can’t remember at what stage Tricia was at – probably because I didn’t discover the blog at the beginning.
Several thoughts
+ In addition to financial management, there will be many other things you learn: handling non supporters or negativity. It comes with putting yourself out there, but don’t let it deter you from your goals.
+ We would all like to blame our problems, and taking responsibility ourselves is such a huge accomplishment, but you will also learn that our society/culture has sucked you in and wants to keep you there. Learning to question the “white picket fence” mentality will change your thinking about a lot of things.
+ Learning to value what really matters (family, faith, love) will out trump any addiction, attraction, or luring that tries to keep us in a hole.
One place to start, Claire, is try to get in the habit of asking yourself, “Do I really NEED this?” before buying it. I’ve started doing that the past few years and it has helped me cut back on frivolous spending, or at least made me more aware of when and why I was spending frivolously.
Hi Claire,
Gritting your teeth and getting on with it is great. Also, I second some of the other comments about understanding how you got in the situation to be important.
I got into debt because I shopped emotionally. I would just go to the mall and wander around, trying to find something that I “needed” in order to quell whatever anxiety/stress I was feeling in my life at that time. It wasn’t until I finally realised years later what I was doing that I was able to change that habit into one that was cheaper, like hiding in a hot bath ;)but I’m still paying off that debt.
Now, what drives you is likely to be something different, but I mention it since you did say you were the queen of denial…and denial is a lot harder to do if you understand your motivations and head things off at the pass.
You’re braver than I to put all this out publically – I truly hope this method and forum are helpful to you.
Marnie
I think it’s important to have your positive attitude and to look forward. However, I don’t think that anyone conquers debt for the long-term without looking backward, dissecting the mess they made, and understanding how and why they got into so much debt. Otherwise, humans are bound to repeat their mistakes (as we humans do in so many other areas of life).
Also, looking backward might help you undo mistakes that are recent and easy to undo. A good example would be your cars. I’m still amazed that you added such a massive amount to your debt just as you were about to start getting out of debt. Looking back to that decision will hopefully make you decide to sell your cars and get “beaters” for a few thousands dollars until you’re out of debt and can pay cash for something nicer.
I agree – all you can do is look forward.
I don’t know enough about you to form any real judgements at this point. You recognize a need for change, and have made a huge commitment towards that end goal (this blog). All I can say at this point is *applause.*
I really don’t see the criticism as useful (& last I commented, I used to be the harsh commenter on this blog – ha!). As long as you are trying and being realistic, I have nothing negative to say.
I agree, recognize the need to more forward, and then stick to it. Letting go of the past mentally can be tough, but it has got to be done. Best to you.
Thrifty is something that can be learned. Even if you didn’t grow up in a “thrifty” environment, like a healthy lifestyle, it can be learned over time. This blog is a great first step to educate yourself and reinforce new and good habits!
Love, love, LOVE the line about what an alcoholic must go through. I definitely struvk a chord with me! For me my debt (although it’s small compared to yours) is really the result of a spending addiction. It’s not the act of fixing it so much as it is how overwhelmed I feel looking at how far I still have to go. Good luck to you! I think you’ll do just fine as soon as you find your rhythm. I can’t wait to see you sail through this debt!
If I did not know better, I’d think my husband was posting under the name Todd! I swear he has a spreadsheet for everything! As I’ve shared, I don’t “speak” spreadsheet but once they are created and explained to me? I’m totally on board! They are invaluable in showing us where we’ve been and where we need to be.
Sasha–so much of tonight’s post was with your comment in mind. I absolutely agree with the importance of the constructive criticism in the comments. I welcome that and have already learned from it! Thank you for being a part of that.