Credit Card Wars...

Soon after my wife and I got married a few years ago (18 years ago!), we had this idea that we would pay off my $2000 college debt and be free to go where we wanted in the world! But instead of that scenario, somehow we got caught up paying the minimum payments to Visa and Mastercard for new tires that needed replacing, car repairs, dinners eaten out at at the end of the month when money was low, vacation miles and weekend getaways that were not completely in the budget and a host of other things that somehow we needed before our next paycheck.

And even though we paid regular payments each month, we could never really seem to get ahead. As the years went by, we figured out ways to pay off our debts through consolidating our debts and bringing down our credit card percentage rate. But this seemed to put band aids on the whole issue and even though our buying habits were smarter, we had not hit the wall yet (our real wake up call!) We had, as yet, been able to figure out methods and ways to pay off our credit cards, but knew (deep down) we were doing something wrong. We just always thought we would get a better job or something would change. And something DID change: We got a better job and bought a house! A year later, we soon figured out how to pay off our debt by using equity in our house. This seemed to work really well until we had a drop in pay. Then our credit card payments got higher and higher as we didn't have the income each month to cover all the expenses. On top of this, suddenly the real estate market dropped in 2007 and we lost all equity in the house. And with our credit card payments increasing, we found ourselves struggling to pay our mortgage payments too.

So you can imagine what happend! Yes, exactly. By 2008, we lost the house. If that wasn't bad enough, my father was dying and my wife quit her job to help take care of him. You can imagine the effects. Living only on my income, without the house and not able to pay our credit card payments (and with 12 puppies to take care of too!), we soon drifted into the most difficult financial time in our marriage. Our faith in God became stronger by leaps and bounds through these next few years and honestly cannot understand exactly how we got through all this!! Needless to say, we still have food and a place to live, and our family is healthy and strong. Lots of things changed during those years but one thing stayed at the forefront: We no longer use credit cards! It was a hard lesson to learn, but we finally learned it. And yes, there are many more lessons we're learning that I haven't shared yet. Still, this lesson is crystal clear and I hope this helps you in your voyage though life too!