Holding Me Back

When you turn 18 here in the land of plenty your mailbox starts filling up with pre-approved credit card applications. 14 years ago that happened to me. I lived at home with my mom, had my own car, had a job, paid my own bills and was attempting to pay for myself to go to college - stupidly one day I sat down and signed my name to one of those pre-approved credit card applications and the downward spiral began. There was a rough patch in life where my parents got divorced, grandfather passed away and then my big sister moved out. At some point in that timeframe my happiness revolved around material things - I unfortunately didn't have a relationship with God at that time so I honestly didn't know any better. I wasn't really thinking about how what I buy today would affect me 10, 15, 20 years down the road.

I would gain weight and lose weight and with each time I would buy a new wardrobe, I wanted to go to Disney World, on a Cruise or to take my mom on a birthday trip for her 50th birthday I did - all courtesy of the plastic in my pocket. I had sneakers that matched every outfit in my closet, more CD's than I had places to put them and went to every concert that I wanted to that came into town. And the bills piled up. They have always been paid on time and never has anyone bailed me out to do so.....but the balances just kept growing.

I'm now 32 years old, married with 2 children under the age of three, have a home and we have 2 cars, one that's paid for and we actually own and one that well the bank owns and we buy a little piece of it each month with our payment. We stopped using our credit cards, well for the most part there is the occassional purchase, 2 or so years ago. We closed most of the accounts and even managed to workout payment plans with a couple of the banks where we were able to cash-in on lower interest rates and a set monthly payment that would guarantee payoff of those bills within 5 years. We started the Total Money Makeover with Dave Ramsey and started making some serious changes to the way we do things. There is now a no joke light at the end of the tunnel and each month when the payments go out the light gets a little brighter.

But until then I feel held back. I've always been a giver and a helper and well I can't give or help the way I want to when the money already has a name on it before we even earn it. I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom and be the one that raised my children until they went to school and to be able to go on the field trips and be a room mom - well that has been taken away from me too thanks to our debt. In the last few years I have also come to have a relationship with God that grows by the day and our debt holds me back there as well. I can't give or help or participate in all of the ways that I feel God is calling me to do because the bills have to get paid. I know throwing myself a pity party isn't going to change anything. The only thing that will change our situation is paying the bills off and NEVER going back into debt again.

But I will say this - on this financial journey I have learned a lot of very important things. Happiness doesn't come from things - it comes from first a relationship with God and second relationships with family and friends. And by the way paying for a concert that you went to when you were 20 when you are now 32 isn't that great either. So take a word of advice - don't get that first credit card and do things that are more important with your money.

My new mantra is this:  Don't just spend your time, money, energy, life......Invest It