Failing | Finances pt.2

In my last post I shared my journey from ambitious college graduate to unemployed floater to stable young professional. I landed a full time, albeit somewhat emotionally toxic, job that allowed me to start to get my finances together while living with my family in the Philadelphia suburbs.

After about six months of annoyance at that job, I ended up parting ways with that gig and landed my current role. At the time I was having a great summer, working in my field/using my degree and making more money. Win. Win. Win. Well, now that I had all of my personal boxes checked it was time to move up to the big girl checklist and start thinking about buying a house.

I was about seven months into my current job when I started looking at houses. For real. In person. Not just online window shopping. And somehow I convinced a bank to get me a loan for my condo. Like, how??? I'm still shocked. But capitalism soooooo.....by month nine of being at my job I was a homeowner. Gifts were given. Photos with heartfelt captions were posted. Champagne was popped.

Well at that point didn't I deserve to treat myself to new furniture and supplies for my new home? Of course I did! Despite having bought a crap ton of stuff prior to moving, in came my old friend the credit card. Need a new dresser? Swipe. Pots and pans? Swipe. Linens and bedding? Swipe, swipe.

By the time summer was over I'd added thousands of dollars to my debt. And that's on top of the balance I already had (it was lower than it was previously but still not at zero). I struggled to transition from living at home having all of the bills pretty much taken care of to doing it all on my own. And again, I know that's coming from a privileged place so no eye rolls needed. Don't judge me please. So swipe, swipe and away I went. I now realize that deserve feeling made me act extremely self-righteous. After all, I was paying my real bills with my paycheck. The card was just for fun stuff.

But the card quickly got maxed out. Big gulp. And so I figured out a brilliant way to keep getting what I deserve. I did a balance transfer and got ANOTHER card. Double stupid. Yayyyyy. I kept afloat for another year. Until the zero interest on card number two expired. And then I drowned. Fast. I was too embarrassed to ask for advice so I used the internet to diagnose my financial problems. Cause that always works. And that led me further down the path of stupid. I got a personal loan this time. So now, I had my mortgage, bills, student loans, two credit cards and a personal loan to pay for each month. Not to mention food, my transit and other random expenses.

Despite adding to my list of open accounts the loan allowed me to have a fixed payment with a lower interest. Fast forward a few months and thankfully I was once again able to stay afloat.

One day as I was walking to the train I was listening to a podcast called Death, Sex and Money. The episode was about student loan debt and a woman shared her debt story. She basically said she had to give herself a real kick in the pants and get her shit together. She got serious after listening to a man called Dave Ramsey.

She prefaced her recommendation by saying she didn't agree with him politically at all but at the end of the day, his plan worked for her.

As I continued to listen to the podcast and hear more stories from DSM I decided to look up this Dave Ramsey person. I downloaded a podcast and got to listening. Surprisingly, his advice made sense to me. His tough love, tell-it-like-it-is style spoke to me. And for whatever reason, that day I really listened. I researched the methods and took a hard look at my finances. I found both skeptics and naysayers. I even found devout followers. I don't agree with everything the man says. I don't think hes a genius. But, I do think his strategy, better known as the baby steps, is feasible for me.

So for the past eight months I've been following the baby steps. And I've made huge strides. Trust me when I say it has been hard. I had a limited Christmas, my bonus and taxes went straight to bills and even my stimulus check was on autopay before it technically cleared my account. It takes A LOT of discipline and self awareness. I've struggled at times still with having Ideserveitis, as Dave calls it, but seeing the progress is a motivator to keep going.

In my next post I'll dive deeper into how I've implemented the baby steps and what I've learned about my finances, and myself.