Fear brings out the worst in people, and marriage certainly brought out the worst in me. Unlike most young women I knew, I was not thrilled to be going from a “me” to a “we.”
Don’t get me wrong. I loved the man I was marrying, but I wasn’t used to taking others into consideration. I was afraid that by getting married, I would lose myself: my identity, my independence.
My partner unknowingly married someone with debt.
I maintained a healthy social life apart from my husband. I worked hard to build a successful and fulfilling career. I was hiding my purchases from my husband, keeping him in the dark about what turned out to be a $10,000 secret.
And this wasn’t the first time.
The first time was back in college. I was away at school, with my very first credit card. It was my mom who eventually bailed me out.
My shopping problem followed me home from school and then I first moved in with my now-husband and I remember him telling me that I couldn’t let this happen again. He didn’t know my history with money. When it became obvious to me how deep I had buried myself — again — I felt nauseous. I didn’t want to tell him, but I knew that he had to know.
I cried when I told him. My struggle with money was no longer about my ability to purchase a car, pay off my student loan debt, or replenish my winter wardrobe. There was so much more at stake.
Big goals, made even bigger by the fact that almost a year before, he had put his trust in me, giving me the go-ahead to leave my full-time job and pursue the freelance lifestyle I had always wanted.
I was disgusted with myself, remembering all the confidence he had placed in me.
I knew I had to fix this problem myself. In the end, getting closer to debt-free took several steps.
The first thing I did was transfer all of my credit card debt away from my high-interest card and onto a card that offered a 0 percent interest rate for one year. I had been trapped by my high-interest rates, my bill becoming more and more insurmountable with every month that I did not pay my balance in full.
The next thing I did was determine a manageable amount to throw at these two cards each month.
If your bank account can handle it, I would suggest setting up automatic monthly bill pay, so that you don’t even have to worry about forgetting your bills and incurring late fees.
After that, I signed up for a free online money management system. The one I use is Mint but there are others to choose from, such as Yodlee, Wesabe, and Quicken Online.
Let me tell you, nothing drives home your shopping issues quicker than the realization that most of your hard-earned moolah is going toward a-line skirts, newsboy caps, and candles.
My biggest challenge was giving up my credit cards. I locked all of them away in a business card case and left them in my husband’s care.
And then I just stopped shopping.
Knowing that I had been unable to learn my lesson in the past, I knew that there was no other way. Drastic measures were required, and taken.
I felt on top of my finances, and I knew that, with each carefully considered purchase I made, I had plenty of money to spare. For someone who had felt guilt and fear due to her finances for the past eight years, feeling this good about money was huge.
These days, before I make any purchase, I make sure to ask myself the following four questions (and you should, too):
1. Is this item necessary?
2. If it’s not necessary, does it make me feel fabulous?
3. Does it yield a positive response? When the following equation is considered?: Cost of item ÷ how many times I’ll use it = so-worth-it. If the result is small …
4. Is buying this item worth putting off our goals as a couple? (Lord, I want that house.)
When it comes to the big stuff, we want the same things. Remembering this makes it so much easier to stay debt-free.
And it doesn’t hurt that relinquishing my spending power helped me gain more power over my finances in the end.
Photo by Joanna Nix-Walkup on Unsplash
Originally published on YourTango
