Eliminate Credit Card Balance

45. Eliminate credit card balance (carry no monthly balance) by the time I go to grad school.

One of the biggest issues that I have been dealing with for over a year and a half and have not talked at all about on this blog is my fight with debt.

Probably the most dramatic stories that you hear of my generation is college graduates being saddled not only with huge amounts of school loan debt, but also a crushing amount of credit card debt.  One of The Boy’s colleagues graduated school with $30,000 in credit card debt – independent of his student loans.  He ended up getting married and having a child while saddled with this debt.  I cannot even fathom that: I can’t bear the thought of The Boy marrying my financial responsibilities.

I did not have $30,000 worth of debt.  Nowhere close.  I did not have to declare bankruptcy, eat ramen noodles three meals a day, or sell all of my worldly possessions to clear my debt and my name.  My debt was more insidious than that.

Before I got the job that I have now, I kept a $0 balance on the only $500-limit card I had.  I only paid a finance charge once since I’d had credit from the age of 16.  When I wasn’t making money, I wasn’t spending money, and I got along just fine.

I can’t pinpoint a single item that began this long road I’ve been on, but I can cite a single event: I got a job that paid me a salary.  A seminal event on this long road was buying my $800 laptop on credit as a present to myself.  I thought that I was fine because I had $1,000 in my checking account to back me up, but my miscalculation was that I wouldn’t  receive an actual paycheck for 3 weeks after the date I was hired.  I began to buy everything on credit during those three weeks.

That, in and of itself wouldn’t have been enough to get me in the situation I found myself in with credit card debt.  But across an entire year, I developed a hubris that I could spend within reason and I wouldn’t have to worry because I’d have a paycheck to take care of it.  I gained a false sense of security, believing that I had the money to back my purchases.  The only thing that paid off in my gamble is that I was right, I was still getting a paycheck.  Had I not had those paychecks, this story would have been a lot different.

I did not get to spend either my tax return or my stimulus check, because it all went to debt repayment.  In addition, I was taking 45% of my after-tax paycheck to pay down my debt.  I was also making payments on backed rent and two surgeries.  If I had lost my job during this economic crisis, had become disabled from my foot surgery, or was otherwise unable to bring in a paycheck, I would have been completely unable to make any kind of payment to any of my debts.  There were days that I was robbing Peter to pay Paul to cover some of my debt obligations.  The worst part was, I didn’t stop buying on credit.

I didn’t get really serious about my spending issues until I’d run up $3,000 on a $5,000 card that I’d opened to get finance-free through what was supposed to be a final $800 worth of debt (which, obviously, wasn’t the end of my debt).  It took me a year to clear out that "last $800" worth of debt.

I did the math, since June of 2007, I paid a whopping $5,627 dollars to my credit card (this is roughly 1/6 of my paycheck).  This doesn’t factor in what I paid in interest, nor what my original charges were.  This just covers lost income gone to paying debt.  If I’d just saved those payments, I’d have been halfway to my budget for my wedding (or not-wedding, but that’s another story for another day).

I realize that my story of debt isn’t as dramatic as some other stories, but I think it’s a reality more applicable to those who carry debt.  And yes, it is embarrassing to admit, but I feel that if this account helps you, or you forward it to someone as a wake-up call, then my story is not an expose of shame.

The most important part of this story is what I’ve learned from my experience.  There are some schools of thought that say if you can’t handle credit, you should eliminate your exposure to it.  That might work for some people, but my view is that credit is necessary in today’s economy, and is a wonderful tool if used correctly.  And just like any other tool, if you ignore the warnings and insist on using that tool for a job other than what it was intended to do, you’re going to get hurt – sometimes seriously.  I’ve proven in the past that I can, in fact, handle credit.

I don’t have any particular tips for eliminating your debt – I would recommend several fantastic finance blogs that offered me other financial help and have wonderful advice for people in my situation (The Simple Dollar, Wise Bread, and I’ve Paid for This Twice Already. . . for starters).  The only thing that I can offer is that I stopped thinking of 45% of my paycheck as my money.  That money was no longer mine to spend – it belonged to my credit card company.

I will still continue to save that 45% of my paycheck, because I’ve grown accustomed over the last six months to not having that money.  I can also say that I’ve learned my lesson about spending money I didn’t have, because I cannot explicitly express in words just how good it felt to make that last payment on my debt, and how much I look forward to never having to do it again.

The “I Love Jesus” Effect

Sometimes, I like to indulge in something I have dubbed The “I Love Jesus” Effect, in which, I – a normally non-retaliating person – has no choice but to react in the exact manner requested.

The “I Love Jesus” Effect is so named because of a bumper sticker, “Honk if You Love Jesus”.  One day, when I was still working long hours at the department store, I was about five cars deep at a light at a busy intersection at the busiest time of day.  At that point, I’d been cut off about four times, had three customers give me shit that day and was generally cranky.  Sitting idly at the stop light, I read the bumper sticker ahead of me: “Honk if You Love Jesus.”  I read that bumper sticker, and a wicked Grinch-like grin crossed my lips, and I though, “Hmm, I love Jesus. . . .”

Five-deep in line at a stoplight, I mashed the horn for a few seconds, and wickedly giggled at the thought that the bumper-sticker-lover was going to have to have his car detailed.

I very rarely use the I “Love Jesus” Effect, simply because it’s a douche-y thing to do, but there are just some times where it is completely appropriate.  The Boy used it yesterday on me.

We stopped at Circle K so that he could buy cigarettes and I asked if he would buy me a “Polar Pop”, which is Circle K’s gimmicky drink that you can buy a soft drink up to 32oz for only 59 cents – and stays colder longer because the cups are made out of the most Earth-unfriendly Styrofoam.  The Boy, both humored and annoyed that I’d called it buy it’s stupid name, stood in front of the soda fountain, though to himself, “Well, it is cost effective to buy the biggest one. . . .”

He came out with the biggest friggin’ soda I’ve ever seen.  The base was as big around as a small salad plate.  It wouldn’t even fit in my cup holder, I had to squeeze it in there, and hope that I didn’t produce a stress fracture and explode all over the center console of my car.

The worst part is he grinned like an ass every time I had to wrestle it out of the cup holder to take a sip.

NaBloPoMo’08, Day 25:

I have a really nice planner in my office who I’ve worked on a few cases with.  He’ll bring me cookies every now and then, just because he’s that nice.  I let him know that we were going to have to work quickly to finish his plan as I was going to be gone for a few days because of my surgery.  He wished me well, wished me luck, and brought me the last two truffles out of a box he’d gotten from a company called Coblentz’s – since my teeth were going to be out of commission for a while. 

Coblentz is a company out of Walnut Creek, Ohio, and have been awarded the Best of Ohio Amish Country award for their wares.  (And seriously, oh my God, these were the best truffles I’ve ever had in my life, and I live in the same town as a legendary chocolatier, Malley’s. If you want to get someone a great box of truffles, buy them from Coblentz.)

The “Amish thing” never really phased me all that much, even before I went to school in Ashland County.  I appreciate their conviction for their religious beliefs, but I’ve never been a person who freaks out when they see an Amish buggy rolling down the street (actually, I hope that there are no children in the buggy and that other cars are careful).  The things that I am fascinated with, however, is the simplicity of lifestyle, and the care they give to their crafts.  I can tell you that if you buy a piece of Amish furniture, you will have it forever.  My father and mother hired some Amish construction workers to build a barn for the yard.

In Kidron, OH, which is about an hour from my home, there is a sort of Amish general store called Lehman’s.  In part, it’s hugely a tourist trap, but, there are “Amish appliances” where the Amish can get cast iron stoves, ice boxes, and non-electric tools.  My favorite rooms include the oil lamp room (which has thousands of oil lamps in various styles and sizes, some of which can be fitted with modern-day bulbs), the crockery ware (where I got four apple bakers for my mother), and the kitchen appliances (an entire wall of different cookie cutters, mixing bowls of all sizes, all kinds of finely-crafted knives, gigantic copper kettles you can bathe in…all kinds of stuff).  I can’t wait to go back so I can spend a few hours just wandering around and looking at all the neat things they have.

I would recommend popping through the Best of Ohio site and checking out what the retailers have.  If you’re looking to get me a Christmas gift, I have my eye on a cedar chest.

NaBloPoMo’08, Day 11: Travel America

The Boy and I (ages 21 and 18 respectively) when we first started dating.

Back when I started college, Ashland was a different place than it is today.  It had not yet seen the growth that you would see now.  In the fall of 2002, if you got off US 250, you would not have seen a Goasis loaded with FlexFuel gas pumps, a Starbucks, a Popeyes, and a Pizza Hut.  You would have seen an old Travel America, set back a little from the road, potholes through the parking lot, sketchy looking hillbillies rambling in and out, and usually three to five semis parked in the back.

Open all night, the TA was a good place for a trucker to get a good meal, talk with his boss on a phone at the table, take a shower, pick up a carton of smokes for the road, and maybe even get some stuff for the cab.  My favorite staple of the truck stop is the mirrored glass case showcasing the standard glass art fair: roses, dragons, fairies, cats, swords, etc.  Despite the blessing of its existence for the road-weary traveler, this TA was a total hole, but maybe that’s what made it perfect for The Boy’s and my early courtship.

He and I were talking tonight, and during lulls in the conversation, I use the idle filler, “Tell me a story” in the hopes that somehow, we’ll get the conversation going again.

He’s always been good at telling me stories, I think that’s part of the reason why he and I fell in love – I’m a sucker for a story.  I may have mentioned this before, but The Boy went to the brother high school of mine, but he was a senior the year I was a freshman, and I was a transfer-in student when I was a sophomore.  So, by the time I even got to Beaumont, The Boy had already gotten to Ashland, and any chance of him and I running into each other in high school had been quashed.  At any rate, The Boy (and the Twins) have a lot of stories to share about the time they spent at Benedictine.

In December of 2002, the anti-smoking law in Ohio hadn’t passed yet, and I was a kid fresh from the watchful eye of parents, so finding a place to sit and smoke was the most appealing option.  This TA was apparently an old hangout of some of the band and KKY kids, and The Boy followed suit.  The waitress was usually kind, and kept the ashtray empty and the coffee cup full.

He and I would roll into TA at about 10 at night, order food, coffee and Diet Coke and sit for hours telling each other stories.  He told me all of the hijinks he’d gotten into with JohnBoy during high school, and eventually the stories about him in college.  I heard a those stories for the first time on those nights; and they are stories I love to hear over and over again, because every time I hear them, I remember those cold nights when we first started dating and I wanted to imbibe everything he had to offer.  He was the first guy I’d met who had interests other than of himself, much less interests at all.  He was charming, sweet, attentive, smart, and chivalrous enough to buy my food and Diet Coke on his meager $44/pay period income from lifeguarding at the university’s gym.

I do appreciate the economic growth and change of Ashland.  There’s a part of me that finds it heartening that there is a Super Wal-Mart and a Starbucks on the main highway into Ashland.  But at the same time, I get sad when I look at the Goasis, and in my mind, I can faintly see a shadow of the TA that was – I see the place where The Boy and I first began to fall in love.  That’s what makes me the most sad about the advent of change – the seemingly sterile erasure of an entire history.  The only upside that I have to show for that entire part of my history is I still have the person I shared it with.

NaBloPoMo’08, Day 7: Is that a Wholesaler Tee, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

In relation to yesterday’s entry about the goodie-grab, I have another wholesaler goodie story for you.

As I was saying yesterday, before the economic crisis hit, one of the big perks of my job was the wholesaler “stuff”.  We would get everything from a holiday party, to regular parties, to lunches for product introductions, to sponsored meetings in other cities, and of course, the requisite tschochkes.  Sometimes, the stuff is pretty cool: I like the nice ballpoint pens that say in their quiet way, “I have arrived.”  I also have a wine-cooler carrying bag (which, for the record, I had to have, even though I’m not a wine drinker).

But sometimes, the stuff stinks pretty hardcore.  For example, one wholesaler gave us Slinkies made out of plastic that didn’t have enough mass or length to actually do what they were supposed to do.  How do we know?  Because, a group of us – early-to-mid-20-somethings working for a Fortune 500 company – took to the stairwells on our lunch hour after receiving our Slinkies and tried them out.  Talk about a bummer.

Another wholesaler goodie that I’ve never experienced but I’ve heard legend of is the wholesaler t-shirt.  This is not the same as the Nike golf-shirt-giveaway; those golf shirts are actually quite nice, and the envy of the office.  Nay, the wholesaler t-shirt is a wonder to behold.  It’s innocent and unassuming in its pre-washed state: simple, usually white or gray, very basic logo on the left lapel; perfect for running, or yard chores, or sleeping.

However, when washed, the wholesaler t-shirt becomes a terrifying assault to the body and the eyes.  Instead of shrinking all over to something that would now fit your child, the wholesaler tee shrinks in one direction, and that direction is hoochie.  The wholesaler t-shirt becomes a lovely mid-riff-bearing skank top.  Which would be okay if you were a hot cheerleader at a high-school car wash fundraiser, but not when you are my male co-worker who was going to wear it mowing the lawn.  Howdy, neighbors!

I guess, adding insult to injury, apparently, it can’t even be worn under a dress shirt.  My co-worker would start out the day, warily confident that the 1/4 of fabric that he had stretched down and tucked into the waistband of his pants would be fine for the majority of the workday.  Come mid-day, or the first time he had to actually reach for the phone, the tee would come rocketing out of his waistband and underneath the pecs or even up into the armpits.  And even if one were to smooth the shirt back down from the armpits, there is still the issue of “gappage” of about two inches, which is just enough to piss you off.

I hope that the next time there is a tschochke-grab, I might be able to find a wholesaler tee of my very own.  If for nothing else, just for posterity.