Our Financial Adventure...Part 1

Have you ever felt like you were doing everything you thought you knew how to do when it comes to managing your finances but you were constantly struggling to make ends meet? Maybe you’ve been super excited that you finally made it to payday only to have all your excitement come crashing down when you realize that the amount you just spent at the grocery store means you can’t pay all your bills with the paycheck you just got. Or maybe you’ve found yourself with piles of credit card bills because you said you’d “pay it off by the end of the month” but you never quite made enough to see that thru. 

This pressure filled, anxiety inducing roller coaster is known as living paycheck to paycheck. If you’ve been on this ride for a while—you’re not alone! Nearly 78% of Americans feel like they are right there with you living paycheck to paycheck! That’s certainly the beginnings of the financial hole we found ourselves in back in 2008. Well, that might not have been the beginning but that was certainly part of our problem…the other part of the problem was me. 

This story might be a tad long for a blog post (I am pretty sure the entire story is enough to fill a book) but I am going to share the story of our financial adventure with you here anyway. I will keep it as brief as possible but it is my hope that you will find something in our story that gives you hope to change your own story!

2006 was a big year for our family—job changes, a move across the country from Utah to Ohio and the beginning of our debt accumulation.  We bought a brand new truck right before we left Utah and I started down the slippery slope of using credit cards to help “build inventory” for my very pink direct sales business. In the beginning of 2007, we had our second child and purchased our first home which was a real fixer upper You should read “fixer upper” as more credit card debt as well as some personal loans from family to help us pay for a new roof among other important things.  

By 2008, my pink dreams were quickly turning into a nightmare as my debt load was accumulating every month since I was using a credit card to meet the production requirements to keep my “free car” that I “earned”. Better yet—I had maxed out all of our credit cards and I was using a friends credit card to keep this nightmare afloat.  (Seriously—this person is an amazing, trusting friend—and I abused her trust. It floors me that she still talks to me today when I think about the financial strain I also put on her and her family.  I won’t call her out by name but if you’re reading this, you know who you are—thank you for your forgiveness, grace and for still being my friend after all these years!) 

Somewhere in the midst of all of this Nick turned in his brand new truck and got a junky chevy blazer because we were struggling to make our house payment and surely the truck payment was our only real issue. 

WRONG!

Remember when I said at the beginning of this that I was the problem…here’s why I said that…Nick didn’t know that I had racked up thousands of dollars of debt and that we were late on almost all of our bills.  I hid it from him. Every single part of it…until I couldn’t hide it anymore. 

I had received notice that my “free car” was going to be picked up by the repo man at the end of the week.  I surely couldn’t hide that…I had to confess.  Although I don’t remember every single detail of how that conversation went, I will never forget the look on Nick’s face. Was he angry, absolutely.  But most of all he was hurt.  I had broken his trust by lying and hiding what was really going on. By pretending that everything was ok and my pink bubble was a success.  There wasn’t another man in my life but I had certainly committed financial infidelity.  

The car got taken away.  

Our first family vacation was cancelled.

Our marriage had taken a beating.

We were staring at over $30,000 in debt, a mortgage payment to catch up on, babies to feed and only a single income to take care of it all.  

We were at our rock bottom and honestly had no clue what to do.

While asking Nick’s Dad for help and advice he recommended we read a book called Total Money Makeover or at least look into if there was a Financial Peace University class near us.  So, I searched online and found a class at a local church and we signed up for it. For the first time in this situation we saw a glimmer of hope. 

We learned about the baby steps, taking care of our four walls (food, shelter, transportation and clothing), biblical views on money management, and how working as a team was the best (and only) way to get out of the pit we were in.  We learned about forgiveness, trusting God and trusting each other. It was a total mindset shift for us and we were undoing things we thought we know and learning things nobody had ever taught us. (Seriously can’t wait to go into more detail about all of that in future posts.)

We had an amazing group of people in that first class that were constantly cheering us on. We took the class a second time for accountability purposes and then we facilitated several classes at our own church after that. That is where I found my passion for helping others on their journey to financial freedom.  I was determined then to help as many people as I could dig their way out of whatever kind of financial pit they were in.

For two solid years we worked like crazy to follow the plan that had been laid out for us in Financial Peace University. Nick got a new job, I babysat a couple of other kids in my home, we sold so much stuff—lots of it was pink and deeply discounted and some of it was stuff we had each collected since childhood. We were focused and committed to seeing this thing thru to the end! 

Late in 2010 we made our final debt payment! Paying off our car loan was our last thing to do and we had finally crossed that finish line! We were officially DEBT FREE!! We still had a mortgage to take care of but we were free from all consumer debt and it was the best feeling in the world! We vowed that we would NEVER go into debt for anything ever again. 

But could we actually manage that or did we have more lessons to learn? What do you think?

Click here for Part 2 of our story! Or sign up for our emails to get updates delivered right to your inbox.

**If you are struggling with debt or living paycheck to paycheck and can’t see a way to break that cycle, please schedule a FREE consultation with me today. It would be a privilege to walk this journey with you!**