Time to Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Here I sit...another day older and deeper in debt. I am a mother of 3 and married to my second husband. I am 80 lbs overweight, I have approximately $60,000 in credit card debt, and my house is a disorganized mess (at least my some of my closets, cabinets and drawers are a disorganized mess). The debt does not include my auto loans or mortgage. I know I am not alone as there are many of you out there that have similar or even worse situations. Luckily, I have a good job that pays well (especially lucky considering these economic times). I work hard and put in a lot of hours (which leaves little time for much else). My children get to enjoy after school activities. My husband and I keep our finances separate and we have laid out which bills each of us is responsible for. He also has a good paying job, but has his own share of credit card debt, a much smaller amount but credit card debt nonetheless.


I have used credit cards for the past 20 years...since I was 18 and have always carried a balance. When I married my first husband, I was going to college and had already accumulated about $8,000 in credit card debt. I always felt the debt would be paid off once I graduated college. Then, come to find out, I learned the man I married was pretty financially irresponsible and by the time we divorced 6 years later, I had accumulated $40,000 in credit card debt. In the divorce, I took the house, our 2 kids and the $40,000 in debt we accumulated and in return I got to keep my retirement funds and he got stuck with the $30,000 in student loans he had accumulated. He never had the motivation to finish school and would usually drop out of classes midway through a semester so he never even got a degree. Worse yet for him, I have learned that his student loans have doubled due to penalties and interest for non-payment...luckily, he refinanced sometime after our divorce so that debt is not part of my debt.

I know what you're thinking...why would you take on all the credit card debt and not stick him with half? I took the entire amount of the credit card debt because I knew he would miss payments and since my name was associated with the debt, they would eventually come after me anyway. I had never missed payments and was not about to mess up my credit.

I used to blame my ex entirely for all the debt I've accumulated. He was a smooth talker and used to talk me into buying things by telling me that he would work overtime to pay them off. Then he would never come through with his end of the bargain. He also had the tendency to lose his jobs at the most inconvenient times...just about the time I'd get a tuition reimbursement check to pay back college tuition that I had charged on my credit cards. So then I'd have to use those funds to cover his part of the income and the credit cards would never get paid back. He usually would only last at a job 9 months at a time. His irresponsibility led to the demise of our marriage. However, I cannot put the entire blame on him. I ALLOWED him to talk me into buying those things. Somewhere along the line, maybe I wanted some of those things too and I wanted to make him happy so I tried to give him the things he wanted (even though I never received gifts from him...including birthdays, anniversaries, or Christmas, yet he was VERY quick to show me a list of things he wanted for his birthday and for Christmas).

Anyway, all that is history now. After accumulating another $20,000 in credit card debt since my divorce from my first husband, I have no choice but to wake up and smell the coffee. I have to take responsibility for my own actions. I have come to realize that I grew up seeing my mother charge everything. She was a single mother and that was the only way we survived. Although she relied on credit cards and always carried a balance, she always paid her bills. At 18, I got my own credit card and used it as I had learned. I have continued to use them and I cringe to think of all the interest that I have paid...money that I could have just as easily driven down the street and thrown out the window of my car, because that is where it went...into a black hole...to a large bank that has made money off of me instead of vice versa. I have wasted that money away. I have paid a lot more in the long run for the items I purchased than had I waited until I had the money saved up and paid cash. Thus, lies the problem. I, like many Americans, like and want instant gratification. I am an impulsive buyer. I can be talked into buying things because the suggestion sounds good. I will convince myself I need something that I want and tell myself I'll pay it off ASAP. However, after hitting an astonishing $60 GRAND, I have realized that I am still paying for things that I purchased a long time ago. I realize that part of the additional $20,000 I've accumulated was due to survival reasons. For a couple of years after the divorce, I relied on my ex's child support and being that I only received it 50% of the time, I'd use my credit cards to make up the difference when I'd fall short. However, there are also a lot of purchases of WANTS in there too that I didn't have to make: trips to the spa, pedicures, lotions, facials, shoes, clothes, coffees and non essentials that I could have done without.

So here I sit, reality hitting me like a brick to the head, realization sinking ever so deep and KNOWING that it all has to end here. Thus begins my journey of cleaning up my life, cleaning up my cluttered finances, my cluttered body, and my cluttered home. See, I believe each of these issues feeds off the other and to begin cleaning one, you have to clean it all.

I have a lot more to tell, but those will come in future posts. I know I am not alone in this situation. If you find a similarity to your life in anything I've written, join me. Stop making excuses and let's start finding answers. Every hour that I am awake, I will be looking for ways to make money to pay things off, or working out and only feeding my body healthy foods, or uncluttering my home. I will look for ways to save money (clipping coupons, finding sales, buying used clothing) and blogging to share the things that I am doing. This can be done and the mess has to end here! Also, please share things that work for you.

The buck stops here! I will try to post weekly. Share your situation...bare it all!