I have a confession to make…
I’m in debt.
Not the kind of debt that our society seems to encourage — like a mortgage. The kind of debt that you don’t want to let anyone know exists. The kind of debt that has me questioning why on earth I’m admitting this to the internet. The kind of debt that comes with a mountain of shame.
So here I am, in debt.
I wish I could give you one culprit for my debt. One thing that neatly packages it up into a box so anyone reading this goes “oh yeah, of course.” But the only thing that would encompass my debt is me.
And this is my way of fessing up, being painfully honest and doing something about it.
Could I blame a lot of things? Sure. Yet the common denominator will always be me.
I’m the one that decided to spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to solve my chronic pain. It was I who decided to get a leg sleeve for thousands of dollars. And I was very much 50% of the duo that decided to have 75 guests at our wedding before taking a 2 week honeymoon.
In those last 3 sentences you probably get a good idea of how I ended up with debt. There is certainly more to the story, but those cliff notes help paint most of the picture. Paired with my variable income (hooray self-employment), my love of technology and a routine of shopping without a budget, I ended up needing to borrow from a few places.
My savings disappeared and now I don’t know what would happen if I needed to cover an emergency expense.
Finding myself in the position has led to some mentality changes, for better or worse.
I used to silently judge people that didn’t pay their full credit card balance.
I remember therapy sessions where we had to talk about why it was ok for my savings to drop below $10,000.
I was never wealthy, in the financial sense, but I didn’t understand what financial stress really felt like. Until now.
Considering the circumstances and decisions that I’ve made in the last ~5 years, my debt could be much worse. And I am grateful for that. But I am tired of adding stress to my life so I am going to focus my efforts on paying off the $11,765 that I owe to others.
This site will be my journey — my experiments, my wins, my setbacks, my confessions.
And since every journey begins with a single step, this is my first step.
I’m in debt.
