The Steps I Took:
Step 1. Get all my finances together. How much do I have and how much do I owe to whom?
Step 2. Create fun ways to reduce costs and pay off debt as FAST as possible.
Step 3. Let go of my attachment to debt.
Step 4. Invest.
My Journey Begins
Everything seemed great. I was able to pay all my bills on time for probably the first time in my life, I was making enough money to get me through each week, and I had a little extra to spare. Life was grand!
My brother had gotten into investing and he asked me if I was involved in the stock market. I said, “yeah, through my 401K”. Then he asked if I had any debt. “Yes, of course I do. I have two cars and several credit cards so that I can build up my credit score.” My brother shook his head and told me to go read up on financial freedom and the importance of healthy money habits.
After some research, I quickly learned how damaging my decisions were, but I didn’t know what to do about it. No one told me not to get into debt. In fact, I was excited to get into debt! It made me feel responsible to have car loans and credit cards. This was real adulting! So now, after 10 years of gathering debt, how could I possibly adjust my trajectory?
I had to face the facts. How dire was my situation anyway?
Time to get all the information together. I had played a trick on myself over the years which both guaranteed I would never feel financially secure, while also making sure I never ran out of money. The reality is that I was terrified of money. I knew that I would be screwed without it, and I also knew that if I had it, I would spend it. So I played this game of hide and seek.
Money was stashed in about 6 different banks which spanned 2 countries. I figured that if I stuffed money away in little pockets here and there, I would always have money in an emergency. Further, if I didn’t have easy access to funds, I wouldn’t feel the urge to spend it.
Meanwhile, I had 2 car loans, 5 credit cards, and an open family account which I loaned money from. It took several weeks, but I managed to write down all the accounts I had and what the state of them was. It was so scary.
The exercise of gathering the current state situation meant that I had to face my financial reality, and re-live the parts of my life which inspired each decision. For example, I cried over the credit card I used to fly to Australia to see a guy who I was dating, just to be rejected and forced to fly back early. Then there was the car I bought because he said he would move from Australia to the US with me when I was transferred out of Australia due to work. What a disaster. I had buckets of face creams and beauty products, each bottle ranging from $20 to $100, but it was doing nothing for my stress-induced complexion. There was one for a guitar I swore I would play one day and never did. Closets of clothes I would never wear, and books I would never read. I had so much stuff that I had to rent a 2 bedroom apartment, even though I was single. The list went on and on. Each purchase was ripe with embarrassing choices, and each line on my bank statements mocked me for being a naïve sucker.
I realized that this was much more than financial debt. This was another way for me to avoid dealing with the parts of myself which were broken and ashamed. I didn’t want to deal with myself, and the continuous commitment to pay off my debt meant that I always had a reason to get up in the morning and go to a job that was killing me.
Costs Down, Debt Pay-off Up
According to my research, debt is bad. Here’s why.
Let’s say you have a credit card with $5,000 on it and you are paying an interest rate of 19.24% (Google says this is the average. Mine was probably higher) with a minimum $25/mo payment… Don’t let your eyes glaze over. This is important.
If you were like me, then you usually only paid the minimum. Payments higher than that would only happen if I was bored and I felt like I had a surplus of money from not going out.
That is about $79 of interest every month. Only paying $25 will increase your card balance by about $54, causing you to pay more in interest the next month.
If gone unchecked, and if there are multiple credit cards, this could eat up a significant portion of your monthly income. I had about $60,000 of debt, and was paying about $428 each month in interest alone. Damn!
The good news is that just like debt interest compounds, paying it off makes your debt situation exponentially better. The more you pay off, the more money goes against the principle each month rather than the interest.
To reduce debt, first I had to reduce spending. That means not going out to restaurants/bars/clubs, eating simply, and cancelling all the monthly subscriptions like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Spotify, and random other entertainment services. Again I was terrified.
It was like breaking up with close friends. What was I going to do without Netflix? How was I going to live and eat without my social circle of random acquaintances? Aye aye aye.
With costs down, I tackled high interest credit cards first. These are the hungriest money suckers.
I realized very quickly that it was really scary for me to put so much cash on the card balance. “What if I need cash for some reason?” I thought. “What if there is an emergency and I need money for something that won’t take a credit card?”
I tried to remember my commitment, which was to put as much money as possible towards paying off the credit cards. I told myself that if there was an emergency, then I would just use the available balance again. If something needed cash, I could take a cash advance and pay it back the next month. Every penny beyond necessities goes to the card.
It became a game. How could I avoid spending money so that I could put more on the card? I made it more fun to save money than it was to spend it. Every dollar I spent started to annoy me; it was taking away from my goal! I became tenacious. Since I wasn’t wasting time watching Netflix, I had more free time to burn. Instead of going out to restaurants, I researched how to cook my own food. Instead of shopping at Whole Foods, I started going to farmer’s markets. I could get a whole week’s worth of food for under $20!
I had more fun swapping stories with farmers than I ever had with the drunks on Main St., and the healthier habits were giving me energy and zest. I started to read the books I had been neglecting and even practiced my old guitar. Before I knew it, I had paid down my credit cards and was close to $0 balance. I never had to use them.
Lastly I sold my second car. I could only get enough to pay off the loan. Nothing extra. More proof that cars are not investments. I kept the one which was more fuel efficient. This made a huge difference in my ability to put more money on the cards.
I had so much fun not spending money, it never felt like I was depriving myself of anything. I socialized by attending free personal development classes, and from the inspiration of those connections I began to explore my spiritual self.
Letting Go of Attachment to Debt
Throughout this process I had been transferred to a different part of the country due to my job, and stress at work was getting more intense. I was becoming so efficient at life, I started to question why I chose to have such a stressful profession.
I was down to the last $20,000 on my car, but after selling the other and paying off my credit cards, I had stopped working to pay off my debt. Instead, I was putting all my earned cash into a Savings account. I was still having so much fun not spending money, it seemed silly to begin spending it again.
One day my mom called to ask how paying off all my debt was going. I told her that I had stopped aggressively working on it and instead was saving. She asked about my car. I told her. She couldn’t believe it; I had saved enough money to pay off my car, but I didn’t do it. Why?
I got off the phone to think about it. I was scared. $20,000 was a lot of money to drop on a car all at once. It was my entire savings at this point. I would have absolutely nothing if I paid off the car. Zero balance all around. What would I do after that? The only thing I would have to my name is a car that could break down if something went wrong. Never mind that it only had 70k mileage and was a Toyota Prius, it could happen! And then what? I have always had debt. What purpose would I have to go to work and live my life if I wasn’t paying for a particular lifestyle? I didn’t know, so I left it.
The next day my mom called me back and asked again. I told her I hadn’t paid it off. She said, “I’m proud of you. Now go pay it off.” I took a deep breath, logged into my bank, clicked the “pay full amount” button, then screamed! lol, it was totally crazy!! I was debt free! $20K gone like that! But what I gained in freedom was absolutely priceless!
The next day I went into work feeling like a million dollars, with no reservations about not bending over to anyone’s BS. I was free. No obligation other than a rental agreement that was ending soon. I was walking on sunshine.
Step 4. Investing
Once everything was paid off, I started looking at investments. This is where things get really fun. By this time I was able to operate off of only 20% of my monthly income, which meant I had 80% of my funds to invest. I put 10% into a risky, individual stock portfolio, and the remaining into the tried-and-true method of market-wide ETF’s.
This is where compounding interest becomes your friend. In the same way it dinged you harder while in debt, it causes your investments to earn more the more you earn. If you have a good balance of value stocks and growth stocks, you will see the interest compound over time, providing for a nice stream of income.
Over all, because we had such a good run in the market, I watched those investments go up 20%.
Within the course of 2 years, I went from being $60,000 in debt, to a significant amount more in the green. It was a true Zero to Hero story.
Wrapping it all up
I was lucky to be able to take this on without any concern of how it would impact my family. I didn’t have a partner to convince, nor children to worry about. I was my own biggest obstacle when it came to sorting out my finances. Even still, I noticed with great clarity how easily I would play mental mind tricks on myself to avoid paying off debt. I wouldn’t be surprised if other people are doing the same thing. If this story resonates with you, it might be worth exploring for yourself. How are you holding yourself back from paying off debt?