After my husband lost his full-time job of 10 years due to budget cuts, our family got into some credit card debt. We had a young child who wasn’t yet in school, a newborn, and no childcare options that fit our budget, so I was home with the kids. My husband took on substitute teaching work as he looked for a full-time job, but as you can imagine, money was tight. For the first time in our lives, we began to accrue some credit card debt.
It was super-duper stressful|It was super-duper stressful
Doing this was eye-opening, to say the least|Doing this was eye-opening, to say the least
The second thing I did was to take the amount of debt we had on the credit card and divide it by 18 (for the 18 months we had to pay it off). I wrote that number down, and made sure to pay it monthly. It became part of our zero sum budget, and we made sure to pay it off every single month without fail.
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The second thing I did was to take the amount of debt we had on the credit card and divide it by 18 (for the 18 months we had to pay it off). I wrote that number down, and made sure to pay it monthly. It became part of our zero sum budget, and we made sure to pay it off every single month without fail.
None of this was easy|None of this was easy
I lost sleep over it all. I began to hate my budget app and the fact that I had to pay attention to every dime I spent. But 18 months later, we paid off our debt, and it was the most amazing feeling ever. It was as if a literal weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
To this day, I still use that budgeting app (I don’t hate it nearly as much) and track all our spending. Even with other financial scares that have cropped up over the years, we haven’t gotten into credit card debt again, and I’m so, so grateful.
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I lost sleep over it all. I began to hate my budget app and the fact that I had to pay attention to every dime I spent. But 18 months later, we paid off our debt, and it was the most amazing feeling ever. It was as if a literal weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
To this day, I still use that budgeting app (I don’t hate it nearly as much) and track all our spending. Even with other financial scares that have cropped up over the years, we haven’t gotten into credit card debt again, and I’m so, so grateful.
