After the Fact

After everything had hit me like a 3-ton truck, I began to feel better.  Call it life, call it time, but it truly does heal.  After that first day, and the second, and the third, I realized that I was still me, and that I had the support of all my friends and family.  My friends especially were incredibly supportive, some offered me alternative ways of having fun on the cheap, some showed their support by telling me their own stories of debt and being broke and one in particular even rallied behind me to support me with food for a month!  I realized that I was not alone with this monster. That I wasn't going to live in a shadow forever.  I realized I could still laugh, I could still have fun, I could still live and I still had my friends.  

I was more annoyed by the fact that three years would seem like FOREVER!!!  Each day goes by so quickly, and yet somehow 1,068 of them seems endless!  How will I ever be able to reach my goals when they are so far away!?  But each morning that went by I realized that I could get creative with my means of saving money.  (and by saving money, I mean not spending money.)

I began taking my meals to work.  Breakfast and lunch.  I knew I couldn't afford to spend even $1 on food so I started taking my lunch to work like I used to do in grade school.  At first I found it hard to break the habit.  Used to buying a coffee every morning, purchasing a bowl of fruit or eggs and bacon at breakfast and again at lunch spending money on a sandwich is convenient and easy.  But after my first day of successfully avoiding the cafeteria I began to see how habits end up costing way more than you'd think and that I was on the right track to breaking some of those bad habits I used to have.

The thing with habits is that you don't always realize how they affect you.  There are always excuses.  50 cents won't matter.  A dollar won't make a difference.  Two dollars?  What's that in the long run?  What we forget is that habits are formed over time, and so is debt.  And debt, I am realizing now, is a habit.  I am habitually in debt.  Those pennies do add up.  That change in the bottom of your car is real; it's money, and most of us treat it like garbage.  With that mentality towards money, it's no wonder so many of us are in debt. 


I've come to realize that money is like shit.  You have a lot, or you have a little, but everyone's got some.  Even me.  Even now.  It's not a lot, but it'll do.

Realizing You're Broke

When I finally realized...

"I'm broke..."

My heart sank straight down to the bottom of my boots.  My body went stiff and I felt as if the wind had been suddenly pressed out of me.  I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't believe what I was seeing!  The only thing I could think of was...


"How could this happen?
How Could This Happen?

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?"

My credit card statement was twice what I thought it was, and twice what I had been budgeting for.  At first, I tucked the statement away and tried to put it out of my mind, but for two hours the next afternoon I combed through my budget, through every purchase, through every expense, through every bill and every necessity and the only thing that I could come up with is...


"Yup, I'm broke."  


In fact, during my vain attempt of sorting out my finance I happened to stumble upon the remaining balance of my Student Loan, which, I am sorry to say, ended up putting me another three years before my desire to be debt free was fully realized.  So not only was I broke, i was extremely broke.  I was devastated.  I nearly broke out in tears.  No matter what I tried, no matter how many times I moved the numbers around I always came down to the same conclusion.


I
Am
Broke.


I wasn't terribly surprised.  I wasn't shocked.  I had always known that my "travel now, pay later" theory would catch up with me and at that moment I knew that it had.  I sat and really thought about what I needed to do to get back on track for my future.  I pictured scenario after scenario of the things I needed to do, or not do, to help me first get out of debt, then to build me a cache of cash to allow for savings, an emergency fund, one months rent and enough to allow me to travel on cash.  


I had to swallow the bitter reality that I would be 30 before my entire financial goal would be complete.  That was over three years away.  It seemed to me that everything I loved would be denied me for three years.  I could no longer afford to travel, I could no longer afford my motorcycle insurance, I could no longer afford to go for drinks, or purchase more clothes for my already sparse wardrobe.  I could no longer afford to eat out or even to waste gas.  I could barely afford to live.  


Driving home was excruciating.  The severity of my life had a chance to sink in and depress me down through my faith and down through my hope and straight down to the only place were despair lives.  I blinked back tears as the anger I felt threatened to rise up and spill down my face.  I was in such a suffocating situation.  It was the beginning of a new year, a special year, THE most important year in the history of people (2012) and I was broke1  It appeared to me that the next few months, and possibly years, were going to be lonely, boring and dull.  My future was grey.  


Once inside I crawled under my covers and I closed my eyes and let my tears come.  I had to face the facts.  I had to face the truth, that old, ugly bitch, that I spent myself into a coma. 

Being Broke vs Being Poor

Going broke happened to me slowly.  My debt crept up to me on broken legs, pretending to be harmless until one day, very recently, I got one of my credit card statement.  My debt was not harmless after all.  I found out the hard way that what I thought was 'manageable' was really 'crippling.'  I looked at my statement and I nearly had a stroke.  It was twice the amount I thought it was.  

I've always been pretty good with my money.  I was taught to give some, save some and spend some, and I've always more-or-less lived by that rule.  I give to charity, I believe in an emergency fund and try not to spend if I don't have to.  I have a career and a car, but no mortgage or kids.  I have a budget and an extensive spreadsheet to help me track my spending.  I do not eat out, buy useless junk or shop unless I need to.  I've consolidated once, negotiated lower interest rates and have always thought...

"I've got this under control."

My problem is that I have one damn expensive hobby.  I live and love to travel.  I've been to Mexico twice, the Dominican Republic, Florida, Bahamas, Cuba, Costa Rica, L.A. and most recently Vegas.  But I've always found amazing deals and have discovered different ways of 'traveling frugally' (if there is such a thing)

By this measure, one cannot say that I am 'poor.'  I live in a house, I have food in my belly, I am warm and I drive to work.  I am not under the poverty line, am young, have a promising career and have investments in many diverse locations.  But to my immediate despair I am here at the beginning of a new and exciting year...dead...broke.

I have 4 credit cards, all maxed out, bi-monthly car payments and the monthly insurance payment that goes with it.  I have a student loan, a once-a-year motorcycle insurance payment (which I can't afford this year) and monthly payments on a time-share that, once paid off, will be mine until I die.  This, plus so many other miscellaneous payments, has spread me so thin that I do not even have $10 extra at the end of the day and no savings to speak of.

I haven't been this broke since I was in College where at one point I was so broke that I actually pawned some CD's to buy myself my first real meal in days.  That was 7 years ago.  I am appalled to find myself completely grown up and farther in debt than I was in my College days when I spent $1,000 in one month on booze and cabs.

I thought I learned my lesson. 

Apparently, I'm still learning it.