Happy Wednesday and welcome to part two of my confessions! So I told y’all on Monday that my debt journey started back in January 2012, almost two full years ago. In that time, I have paid off $30,090.71 — $14,500 in 2012 and $15,589.71 this year. Note: When I say “paid off” that means the payments made, I have no idea how much is principal vs. interest — I never calculated that.
On Monday, I discussed a lot of the mistakes I made leading to the accumulation of more debt after I started paying my debt off. Today, I’m going to talk about why I continued to finance my lifestyle and why my debt is taking so long to go away.
So here’s the problem: I haven’t addressed the problems.
Problem #1. We throw a bunch of our income towards debt each month, but that is NOT the same thing as taking financial control. It’s more like a band-aid, I can’t spend it if it’s not there. Anything that doesn’t get thrown at debt or immediately transferred to savings, gets spent. I want to be 100% honest with you guys, and that’s it. I spend what is available to me.
Problem #2. I would regularly feel like I deserved to spend and upgrade. I’ve basically gotten over this, but it was really easy when I was working too many hours in a job I didn’t like to justify excessive spending.
I was working 80 hours a week in a cubicle, I deserved better furniture, a better car, and nicer things. Otherwise, what’s the point of making more money? While I fully believe that money is meant to be spent (and saved, calm down), money owed needs to be prioritized before upgrading your shit.
Problem #3. Paying off debt sucks ass. So anyone who has been paying off debt for awhile knows that it really sucks. It’s completely disheartening to throw four figure payments towards debt each month for years on end. While I understand I spent the money, it FEELS like I am just throwing the money away.
Because of this, it’s really easy to get sidetracked and stop caring about the debt load. I’ve had several months where I just completely slacked on paying attention to our finances. I haven’t quite figured out a way to solve this, but I’m working on it.
There you go, guys. These are some of the self-imposed setbacks I’ve faced in my debt payoff journey. Stay tuned for Friday’s post on my debt number. Prepare yourselves.
What are some of your debt downfalls?
[Image from BuzzFeed]
