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How My Recipe For A Debt Disaster Proved To Be Helpful

March 6, 2017 By Kim 2 Comments

Do you remember when you got your first credit card?  How old were you?  I remember when I was 20-years-old trying to get my first credit card so that I could build my credit.  It was so frustrating because you can’t build credit without credit.  No one seemed to want to give me a credit card.  That was until I became a member of a credit union, and I was able to get one.  I was so happy.  I promised myself that I would use it wisely by
  1. not spending more than I could afford, and
  2. paying it off each month.
I did well keeping those promises to myself for quite some time.  It wasn’t so bad because I only had one credit card with a limit of $500.  But eventually I got another credit card; a store brand credit card.  This is where my trouble began.  I loved to shop; I still do, but I’m much wiser about it now.  I would max out both credit cards and pay them off all the time.

 How My Recipe For A Debt Disaster Proved To Be Helpful

Somewhere along the line, I got another credit card with a higher limit because I “needed” it.  At the time I had a used car, and I was only working part-time while going to nursing school full-time.  Anytime my car needed some work done on it, my parents or my then boyfriend, Omar, would help me.  My way of helping myself started to involve using my credit card.  Using credit cards for car repairs and especially shopping only led me to one place ———> DEBT.

In June 2009 when I was studying to take the NCLEX (licensing exam to become a registered nurse) I decided I needed to take a short break.  I was going to go for some retail therapy.  I went out to my (used) car that I had paid off in January.  And guess what happened.  It wouldn’t start.  It wouldn’t do anything.  Come to find out, the engine was dead.  As if being stressed out about taking the NCLEX wasn’t enough, now I needed a new car.

I’m happy to say that I did pass the NCLEX. I also found a new (used) car, which I had to take out a loan for because I didn’t have the cash to pay for it.

I knew I needed to start getting rid of the credit cards because I was tired of having another bill to pay.  The first one to go was the store-specific credit card.  I paid it off and canceled it.  For the next credit card, I did some balance transfers so that I could get 0% interest for a year.  I ended up having to do a few of these because I couldn’t pay it off fast enough; it seemed like a never ending cycle.  Before I could even get going good I had the perfect recipe for disaster ———> credit card debt + student loan debt + car loan debt + NO JOB.

In November 2009 I was jobless with a $253 per month car payment, plus car insurance; 4 student loans to payback; and 2 service cancelable loans to “work off”.  I wasn’t able to help Omar pay our cell phone bill.  Nor could I help my mom pay any of the bills I had been paying.  On top of that, I had useless credit card debt with no job to pay for all of this stuff.  Here I was with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with my RN license, and I had to go back to my college job of being a receptionist at H&R Block just so I could pay my car payment and car insurance.  To top it all off, I had to put my student loans on forbearance.

Fast forward to February 2010 and I started a new job as a RN. My credit card company decided to congratulate me. They sent my credit card bill with a late fee of $39 because I couldn’t afford to pay the $65.64 minimum payment. Why? Because of course I hadn’t received a paycheck from my new job.  I refused to ask my parents for help to pay my credit card bill that was most likely from buying stuff I didn’t need.  This is when I decided that enough was more than enough, and I had to get rid of this credit card once and for all.


Paying cash makes you more aware of what you’re paying for.


On March 9, 2010, I paid off the credit card… all $1,732.88.  A week later I called and canceled it.  It was such a relief to not have that hanging over my head.  Even coming across the old statement the other day still makes me feel overwhelmed.  What was I thinking back then?

After that, I had one last credit card to cancel.  It didn’t have a balance on it, but it took me a couple of months to cancel it although I knew I wasn’t trying to get into credit card debt again.  It was hard to cancel it because it was my first credit card ever; it was like my baby.  Yet, I knew I had to get rid of it.  And so I did.  Canceling that last credit card put me on the road to getting control of my finances.  That was the end of my credit card debt from that day forward.

Omar’s thoughts: I dislike credit card debt as much as Kim.  If you’re interested in finding out my story in regards to why I wanted to be debt free, then check out this post.

Do you have credit card debt?  Do you think it’s wise to do so?  Why or why not?

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Filed Under: Personal + Finance Tagged With: debt, debt free

See what’s happening on Instagram…

thinkingofsomeday

#tbt To last Thursday (1/7/2021) when we became mo #tbt To last Thursday (1/7/2021) when we became mortgage free!! Yes, you read that correctly! We are 100% debt free! Like debt free, debt free. 🤣
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
To be honest, it’s been a week and it still doesn’t feel real to us yet. But it was real watching that money disappear from our account and no longer seeing our mortgage balance when we signed into our credit union account. We must say, our credit union works pretty fast! Lol.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We didn’t even get around to sharing our mortgage payoff goal for the year with one of the little cute pictures explaining how we were going to do it. But here’s a quick recap of the numbers that we were working with...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• mortgage principal: $54,507.37
• mortgage interest: $35.84
• reconveyance fee: $69.00
• paying off our mortgage... definitely not priceless, but oh so worth it!! 😂🙌🏽
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We’ll share more in depth details soon because you’re probably wondering how we came up with that amount of money 7 days into January. It definitely wasn’t from hitting the lottery! Lol. But until then, just know that...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
WE’RE MORTGAGE FREE!!! #piecesofsomeday
So we took some Christmas / family pictures back i So we took some Christmas / family pictures back in 2020 (as if that was so long ago), but I never got to share them. 😩 So here’s one. I actually like the fact that it’s in front of our house. #piecesofsomeday
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And I also wanted to add that we finally did another blog post after quite some time. Maybe we’re the world’s worst bloggers. 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♂️ But if you’re interested, we’re sharing a recap of quarter 3 and quarter 4 from our mortgage payoff journey. We’re also sharing what our mortgage payoff goal is for 2021. We’re a bit excited about it! You can check it out at the link in our bio.
2020. This has been a year that I’m sure none of 2020. This has been a year that I’m sure none of us will ever forget. While this year has been ok for us for the most part, there are many people that it’s been a really really tough year for. Whether it’s been financially, emotionally, health wise, etc. etc. etc. So here’s to hoping that next year will be much much better, for everyone, but especially for those who had a tough time this year. ✨♥️
We started 2020 off with owning 43% of our house a We started 2020 off with owning 43% of our house and we now own 69% of it. We had paid off 39% of the mortgage loan and we’re finishing the year out at having 66% of it paid off. (These 2 numbers are not the same for us because of our 5% down payment as well as when we refinanced to a 15-year mortgage.) It’s been really exciting to see these numbers increase this year.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(Annnnnd this concludes our December numbers. I can’t believe I managed to share them all before the end of the year!! 😂)
Q4 was our best quarter by far, mostly due to the Q4 was our best quarter by far, mostly due to the RSUs that we were able to use. However, even if we hadn’t been able to use them, Q4 would have still wrapped up nicely thanks to us still being able to stick to our 70/30 plan.
For December we were able to color in 4 rectangles For December we were able to color in 4 rectangles. This puts our mortgage balance for the end of 2020 at $54,507.37.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• 132 rectangles total
• 88 rectangles colored in
• 44 rectangles to go!!
The total of our mortgage principal payments for D The total of our mortgage principal payments for December was $3514.74.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
$995.13 came from our regular payment and $2519.61 came from our budget.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This put us at meeting our second stretch goal of putting a total of $45,000 towards our mortgage principal for the year! Yes, we did a little magic with our budget in order to get it at exactly $45k, but I’m sure that’s what we all do in when we’re trying to hit a certain number!! Haha.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We’re soooo happy that we were able to meet this goal because we really weren’t sure if it was going to be possible or not!
Am I right? Or am I right? Throughout parts of thi Am I right? Or am I right? Throughout parts of this year it seemed like the days, weeks, months were going soooo slow. And then all of a sudden summer was over and school was starting. Then it went drastically slower again, but yet here we are with only a couple of days left in this year.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And as usual, time has gotten away from me when it comes to sharing our mortgage payoff numbers. So starting later today and over the next couple of days, I’ll be sharing our December numbers in the hopes of getting them all in before January 1st! 😆 We’ve enjoyed seeing everyone else’s numbers though!
Merry Christmas!! #christmas2020 #piecesofsomeday Merry Christmas!! #christmas2020 #piecesofsomeday
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Comments

  1. Yvonne says

    April 6, 2017 at 1:13 pm

    So many lessons to learn from your story. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
    • Kim says

      April 6, 2017 at 4:40 pm

      You’re welcome. Thank you for taking the time to read it!

      Reply

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A married couple making someday a reality all while balancing family + finances + avoiding debt. Find out more about us, here.

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See what’s happening on Instagram

thinkingofsomeday

#tbt To last Thursday (1/7/2021) when we became mo #tbt To last Thursday (1/7/2021) when we became mortgage free!! Yes, you read that correctly! We are 100% debt free! Like debt free, debt free. 🤣
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
To be honest, it’s been a week and it still doesn’t feel real to us yet. But it was real watching that money disappear from our account and no longer seeing our mortgage balance when we signed into our credit union account. We must say, our credit union works pretty fast! Lol.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We didn’t even get around to sharing our mortgage payoff goal for the year with one of the little cute pictures explaining how we were going to do it. But here’s a quick recap of the numbers that we were working with...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• mortgage principal: $54,507.37
• mortgage interest: $35.84
• reconveyance fee: $69.00
• paying off our mortgage... definitely not priceless, but oh so worth it!! 😂🙌🏽
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We’ll share more in depth details soon because you’re probably wondering how we came up with that amount of money 7 days into January. It definitely wasn’t from hitting the lottery! Lol. But until then, just know that...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
WE’RE MORTGAGE FREE!!! #piecesofsomeday
So we took some Christmas / family pictures back i So we took some Christmas / family pictures back in 2020 (as if that was so long ago), but I never got to share them. 😩 So here’s one. I actually like the fact that it’s in front of our house. #piecesofsomeday
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And I also wanted to add that we finally did another blog post after quite some time. Maybe we’re the world’s worst bloggers. 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♂️ But if you’re interested, we’re sharing a recap of quarter 3 and quarter 4 from our mortgage payoff journey. We’re also sharing what our mortgage payoff goal is for 2021. We’re a bit excited about it! You can check it out at the link in our bio.
2020. This has been a year that I’m sure none of 2020. This has been a year that I’m sure none of us will ever forget. While this year has been ok for us for the most part, there are many people that it’s been a really really tough year for. Whether it’s been financially, emotionally, health wise, etc. etc. etc. So here’s to hoping that next year will be much much better, for everyone, but especially for those who had a tough time this year. ✨♥️
We started 2020 off with owning 43% of our house a We started 2020 off with owning 43% of our house and we now own 69% of it. We had paid off 39% of the mortgage loan and we’re finishing the year out at having 66% of it paid off. (These 2 numbers are not the same for us because of our 5% down payment as well as when we refinanced to a 15-year mortgage.) It’s been really exciting to see these numbers increase this year.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(Annnnnd this concludes our December numbers. I can’t believe I managed to share them all before the end of the year!! 😂)
Q4 was our best quarter by far, mostly due to the Q4 was our best quarter by far, mostly due to the RSUs that we were able to use. However, even if we hadn’t been able to use them, Q4 would have still wrapped up nicely thanks to us still being able to stick to our 70/30 plan.
For December we were able to color in 4 rectangles For December we were able to color in 4 rectangles. This puts our mortgage balance for the end of 2020 at $54,507.37.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• 132 rectangles total
• 88 rectangles colored in
• 44 rectangles to go!!
The total of our mortgage principal payments for D The total of our mortgage principal payments for December was $3514.74.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
$995.13 came from our regular payment and $2519.61 came from our budget.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This put us at meeting our second stretch goal of putting a total of $45,000 towards our mortgage principal for the year! Yes, we did a little magic with our budget in order to get it at exactly $45k, but I’m sure that’s what we all do in when we’re trying to hit a certain number!! Haha.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We’re soooo happy that we were able to meet this goal because we really weren’t sure if it was going to be possible or not!
Am I right? Or am I right? Throughout parts of thi Am I right? Or am I right? Throughout parts of this year it seemed like the days, weeks, months were going soooo slow. And then all of a sudden summer was over and school was starting. Then it went drastically slower again, but yet here we are with only a couple of days left in this year.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And as usual, time has gotten away from me when it comes to sharing our mortgage payoff numbers. So starting later today and over the next couple of days, I’ll be sharing our December numbers in the hopes of getting them all in before January 1st! 😆 We’ve enjoyed seeing everyone else’s numbers though!
Merry Christmas!! #christmas2020 #piecesofsomeday Merry Christmas!! #christmas2020 #piecesofsomeday
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