Whew. Finally, it’s come to this. For someone that has been blogging since January 2003, it’s hard to believe that it’s taken me this long to start up a personal finance blog, but I fear I can procrastinate no more. I graduated from college in December 2004, and my credit card debt has escalated and escalated since then, because of irresponsible spending and charging. For the past year or so, I’ve on and off pledged to myself to do something about the mounting debt, but this time I’m finally ready. To be completely honest, my intentions aren’t 100% noble. There’s a new man in my life recently, who lives overseas, and in making visiting and future life plans, it’s become abundantly clear to me how limited your options are when you owe money to someone every month, and at insane interest prices. So here I am. Operation Financial Freedom.
A little background:
I made it through 3 years of college before being lured into the credit card trap. It started with a store retail card, at Express, of all places, a place whose clothes I pretty much hated. From there, it was one after another, with me thinking I could just pay it all off when I graduated college and had a “real” job. Well lo and behold I was fortunate enough to land a full-time job right out of school, making $36,000, but what did I do? I opened even more credit accounts, and charged even more.
My first mistake out of school was my decision to live in an apartment alone, to the tune of $885/month plus utilities. I didn’t grasp at the time that spending a third of your monthly income on rent was just flat-out stupid. I compensated by picking up part-time waitressing and hostessing jobs, but I still continued to spend more and more.
Fast-forward almost two years, and I moved to a new city, and got a small raise. I once again decided to live alone, this time for $819/month plus utilities. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson. My biggest mistake by far, however, was opening an American Express card in March 2007.Initially, it seemed like a smart idea: I’d be paying off my bill every month, so I wouldn’t charge that much, right, right?! Wrong. American Express so graciously granted me a card with no pre-set spending limit. That’s right, I could charge whatever I wanted. Prior to my Amex, the highest balance on any of my credit cards was $750, not enough to do any serious, serious damage. It makes me sick to my stomach to type this but in just six months, I’ve run my Amex up to $4,700. (To be fair to myself, $900 of that was a recent and temporary, arguably justifiable purchase, that someone will be recompensating me for shortly).
I now stand at nearly $12k in debt. And that’s just credit card debt. This is the debt that knots my stomach at night and worries me nonstop. It’s got to go.
Now is the time. This is my first entry but my personal Operation Financial Freedom officially kicks off on September 1, 2007. My personal finance goals will better explain how I plan to achieve these goals, and what standards and limits I’m going to hold myself to. Thanks for reading, cheers.
