I've been a long time lurker, occasional poster and I think maybe first time submitter.
I just wanted to share that I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel - which if anything is giving me hope to my future. Thanks to this forum and having a reason to turn things around in my life I was able to stop myself before things got too far. In October of 2017 I missed a credit card payment for the first time in my life; while I had excel spreadsheets to track my spending this scared the shit out of me so I decided to make a change. I opened a crappy checking account at Bank of America that has no debit card attached to it and I pay all of my credit card bills out of it so at least at the bare minimum monthly payments are being made. When I started doing this my total debt was around $23,000 on 9 cards or credit lines and I was a 27 years old. I had $150 in my checking and around $700 in my savings. The light at the end of the tunnel wasn't visible to me at all.
Today - my debt level is around $19,500 - little high still considering the time span but I have been nickling and diming these payments and taking my time coming up with a plan. My late payment to discover I was able to mostly get expunged by immediately paying it and getting Discover to not report it (I have a 99% on my credit report for bad marks, so I am not too sad by this - better than what it would have been for a missed payment). I have $1,500 in my checking (I set a personal goal of having at least a full check worth of pay in there at all times, before deductions) and I have $6,500 in savings - with my tax return still outstanding because I filed late w/ an extension (was waiting for a 1099-misc that I didn't need to wait for because it was below the threshold - it never came because it never existed oops).
I've carved out a snow-ball plan for my debt this morning. I'll be taking out three cards, high interest rate and high monthly payments in one swoop once my tax check arrives (I could do it now but I want to keep some funds in my savings) -- this will lower my balance to $12,500 and free up more funds to re-use on the next high interest card. The next two cards can be paid off in 3.5 months with my excess left overs - which will leave me on a plan to debt freedom by March/April of next year by my math.. without having major significant disruption to my savings.
This has been a rough year for me; my fiancee/SO passed away in March of this year - we had been working on this road to freedom for a while and she was my guiding strength in getting my shit together for these last 5 years. The hope and goal of having a family and a car and stability was insight for both of us. When I lost her I kept those promises I made to her (to us) alive - working diligently on my degree (yay more debt, but low interest and not something I'll have to worry about too much when I am done) which will earn me a significant pay raise ($10-15k) in the next 12 months and keeping my head up and positive about things to come.
I ache daily still with her loss; but I made a promise when she passed that I would live through her. I have always been a debbie downer - she brightened everything in my life and I have found my own ways at ensuring her light continues to shine on me. I didn't see this light in March, April or May - but the glimmer of hope is here at the end of June and finally having a plan in place has given me security and the ability to see my future.
Submitted June 30, 2019 at 07:11PM by adberq https://ift.tt/2LuzEp6
