I realized a couple of days ago, to my great shock, that my husband and I are going to have to file for Chapter 13. We are $175K in debt, and did not receive the usual annual bonus that we use to keep all those credit cards afloat throughout the year. As I did bills last week I was terrified to realize that, without that bonus, we are absolutely incapable of making payments and bankruptcy is the only option. In my mind, we were going to have to file do to circumstances beyond our control - the missed bonus, which is due to the economy.
Then last night, laying in bed, I had the must stunning realization, so stunning that it literally took my breath away and made my heart race. The realization: this is MY fault. My husband and I did this to ourselves. It has been a slow 15-year death to our finances, both independently and together, due to our total lack of budgeting and self-control. If we hadn't shopped ourselves $175K into debt, the lack of a bonus would probably have been little more than a bummer, a blip.
Now this might seem like no big deal to you. But I'm here to tell you that after 15+ years of denial, it was one of the biggest shocks of my life.
I got my first credit card when I was sixteen years old. I have never NOT had a credit card. I have never truly understood what it means to simply not be able to "afford" something (to not buy it because the money coming from my paycheck would not cover a cash purchase). Despite a few attempts through the years, I have NEVER EVER had a true budget that I stuck to. How insane is that? But my concept of financial reality - of reality overall - has never, ever not included a credit card. I never thought of the credit card as being an actual loan. I just saw it as being there to use.
As I start to work on a real budget for our family, it is amazing to me that I have never truly had any concept of the boundaries of what we can afford. It's like trying to park a car, but you have no idea how big the car is... no idea of the boundaries you have to account for (especially since I have never truly accounted for anything). Money has a truly abstract meaning to me... it's not a concrete thing, it has permeable edges and changes shape.
This morning I pulled out a book called "Financial Planning for Dummies" from the shelf, which I've had forever. This could be a starting point for understanding how to budget. Inside the front cover I found a sheet of paper dated January 1999... where I had calculated that with $20K of debt and a $25K salary, I was in bad financial shape and needed to turn it around. Ha! Every so often, my husband and I would calculate our debt and have a couple of days of austerity and deer-in-the-headlights fear and then, of course, it would slip away. Time after time I would say, "Babe, we're really getting ourselves into trouble." We would feel shamed and stressed. Then, to relieve my stress, I would go online and buy something and I could feel the stress of reality slide from my shoulders and I felt better. True story.
Over the last three years, I've been a stay at home mom and the shopping has really spiraled downward. Online shopping has given me instant gratification after hours of wiping kids behinds, made me feel glamorous when my jeans no longer fit, entertained me after a day of being smeared with baby boogers during cold season. It helped me avoid the fact that I probably have some level of depression that needs to be addressed directly, instead of being hidden under a pile of delivery boxes from online stores and ebay. I was in denial, and that's on me. Planning the purchase was exhilerating... imagining how I would be a better mom/thinner/smarter/enviable to friends... and then once the item arrived, it was sort of "eh" after a couple of days. Same for my husband; we pretty much enabled each other. And we realized that despite this decade-long $175K shopping spree, we can't really remember any truly awesome purchases that changed our lives in any real sense. We spent tons of money on little or medium-sized (or, as time went on, bigger and bigger) crap. We were buying fantasies of happiness and convinced that we "deserved" these things. We frittered it away on gourmet groceries and expensive meals that literally turned into our s***.
My husband is a lawyer, and I was a reporter and now a stay-at-home mom. We vote and pay our taxes and attend church and go through all the responsible motions in life, but the reality is that we are total frauds. I realize I lie constantly to our family members about where I purchased things and how much I paid ("It was on 80% sale!" "It cost practically nothing on Craigslist! Can you believe it!") In addition to creating a budget, being enlightened on our actual income and what we can actually do with it on a cash-based (i.e. reality-based) basis, I am looking into debtors anonymous and shopping addiction resources. Clearly both he and I have a very unhealthy relationship with spending and money and credit, which we have each had our entire adult lives and will take some time to unwind.
So there you have it; that's my story. Just thought I would confess.
Then last night, laying in bed, I had the must stunning realization, so stunning that it literally took my breath away and made my heart race. The realization: this is MY fault. My husband and I did this to ourselves. It has been a slow 15-year death to our finances, both independently and together, due to our total lack of budgeting and self-control. If we hadn't shopped ourselves $175K into debt, the lack of a bonus would probably have been little more than a bummer, a blip.
Now this might seem like no big deal to you. But I'm here to tell you that after 15+ years of denial, it was one of the biggest shocks of my life.
I got my first credit card when I was sixteen years old. I have never NOT had a credit card. I have never truly understood what it means to simply not be able to "afford" something (to not buy it because the money coming from my paycheck would not cover a cash purchase). Despite a few attempts through the years, I have NEVER EVER had a true budget that I stuck to. How insane is that? But my concept of financial reality - of reality overall - has never, ever not included a credit card. I never thought of the credit card as being an actual loan. I just saw it as being there to use.
As I start to work on a real budget for our family, it is amazing to me that I have never truly had any concept of the boundaries of what we can afford. It's like trying to park a car, but you have no idea how big the car is... no idea of the boundaries you have to account for (especially since I have never truly accounted for anything). Money has a truly abstract meaning to me... it's not a concrete thing, it has permeable edges and changes shape.
This morning I pulled out a book called "Financial Planning for Dummies" from the shelf, which I've had forever. This could be a starting point for understanding how to budget. Inside the front cover I found a sheet of paper dated January 1999... where I had calculated that with $20K of debt and a $25K salary, I was in bad financial shape and needed to turn it around. Ha! Every so often, my husband and I would calculate our debt and have a couple of days of austerity and deer-in-the-headlights fear and then, of course, it would slip away. Time after time I would say, "Babe, we're really getting ourselves into trouble." We would feel shamed and stressed. Then, to relieve my stress, I would go online and buy something and I could feel the stress of reality slide from my shoulders and I felt better. True story.
Over the last three years, I've been a stay at home mom and the shopping has really spiraled downward. Online shopping has given me instant gratification after hours of wiping kids behinds, made me feel glamorous when my jeans no longer fit, entertained me after a day of being smeared with baby boogers during cold season. It helped me avoid the fact that I probably have some level of depression that needs to be addressed directly, instead of being hidden under a pile of delivery boxes from online stores and ebay. I was in denial, and that's on me. Planning the purchase was exhilerating... imagining how I would be a better mom/thinner/smarter/enviable to friends... and then once the item arrived, it was sort of "eh" after a couple of days. Same for my husband; we pretty much enabled each other. And we realized that despite this decade-long $175K shopping spree, we can't really remember any truly awesome purchases that changed our lives in any real sense. We spent tons of money on little or medium-sized (or, as time went on, bigger and bigger) crap. We were buying fantasies of happiness and convinced that we "deserved" these things. We frittered it away on gourmet groceries and expensive meals that literally turned into our s***.
My husband is a lawyer, and I was a reporter and now a stay-at-home mom. We vote and pay our taxes and attend church and go through all the responsible motions in life, but the reality is that we are total frauds. I realize I lie constantly to our family members about where I purchased things and how much I paid ("It was on 80% sale!" "It cost practically nothing on Craigslist! Can you believe it!") In addition to creating a budget, being enlightened on our actual income and what we can actually do with it on a cash-based (i.e. reality-based) basis, I am looking into debtors anonymous and shopping addiction resources. Clearly both he and I have a very unhealthy relationship with spending and money and credit, which we have each had our entire adult lives and will take some time to unwind.
So there you have it; that's my story. Just thought I would confess.
...made me have a good chuckle
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