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Over the course of 8 years with low income, high cost of living and bad spending habits I accrued over $8000 in consumer debt. I wrote a big boring wall of text that boils down to: -2012 was my first year in a decade where my credit card balance went down, thanks to me being forced to kill said card (locking in the old APR before a huge increase), vowing never to carry a balance on the new one, putting all of my spending under the looking glass and as a result changing how I actually spent money. -For the first time in many years, I actually saved up money for something before spending it. I drew up a budget last spring for our next vacation in advance; I made it frugal, hunted deals, set our goal, and for six months my partner and I lived even poorer than usual to set aside money for the trip. It made the whole vacation guilt-free without deepening our debt. God drat that felt good. -I then inherited a complete (and unearned) bailout on my remaining debt. Thanks to the clarity I'd gained regarding my finances, I knew exactly how hard to come by that sum would be for me, and chose to treat what was left over as windfall that cannot fundamentally change my ability to spend. It's still set aside for emergencies like it should be. -I got my periodic bills whittled down as far as they can go and quit smoking a couple years ago, which to date has saved me $5200 I couldn't really have afforded to spend. -Went back to school, and am on track to get a technical certification this summer. Now that I am living within my means and aware of just how poor my income & cost of living makes me, soon I will have to tackle the next hurdle: facing interview anxiety, potentially greater job volatility, and applying for jobs in the hopes of something more interesting that pays me enough to do more than break even. Remy Marathe fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Feb 15, 2013 |
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Feb 14, 2013 23:01
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 03:09 |
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