3) Using a CC when in debt
Debt is the American way, or at least those of us who don’t understand the concept of budgeting much less adhering to one. I’ll never understand why it was mandatory to learn a theorem in school or one-sided accounts of history but accounting class wasn’t seen as necessary, I’m sure many of us would prefer knowing how to do our taxes correctly.
I have never been good with money, since I was a kid and my dad lamented it burned holes in my pockets. When I get it I spend it. Be it on bills, or debts or mani-pedis. A small amount goes in to savings but my savings is a pittance and my 401k…ooof. At my current job I missed the pension date by mere weeks when they remade the retirement system and it’s now just the 401k. A broker I work with asked why I don’t just put the max you’re allowed to contribute into the 401k, but I don’t think she realizes I make a fraction of what she does and no way in hell can I put in 25% or more.
I’ve created spreadsheets of my spending, tracked it, tried to use only cash, tried to use only credit and pay it off each month, stopped eating out, stopped buying myself anything unplanned for, transferred to a 0% APR card, gotten a personal loan…I’ve done a lot of what is recommended, but I’ve never been able to get out. And I hustle, I am not a person who hasn’t had multiple jobs in hopes of trying to get out of debt and just when I begin to climb out I always end up sliding back in with some big expenditure. One year I waited tables and thought I’d claimed my tips correctly to later find out I owed thousands in back taxes the following year. So those thousands I paid off with tips were tacked right back on. A lot of times I find myself reaching for my credit card when my debit has been denied, usually at a gas station or buying groceries…My debit card seems like a gift card, whenever it doesn’t go through I burn with shame. “I swear there is money on there,” I’ll say as I root around for my credit card.
Getting out of debt is hard when you pay north of $800 a month on loans and credit card bills without accounting for the cost of actual life. I used to work in a job that paid me less than $10 an hour when I first moved to LA and that was before taxes. I barely had enough for rent, living on the cheap you still need to use your credit card when your car breaks down. The car you need to get to the job that barely pays you enough to buy food. Even when you make more money, if you work in a support role you are at the low end of the totem pole- places that don’t even match the cost of inflation in their yearly raises for the assistants while those around you get bonuses that could buy a boat.
I’m fortunate, I do make a decent amount of money, but I pay for everything myself. I do not split rent, I do not have a boyfriend to pick up my tabs here or there and as much as I spend many nights in, reading rented library books or watching old DVDs every now and again you want to go to the movies, you want to go get a drink (or five) and every now and again you want to do something that costs money. 
Whomever said money couldn’t buy you happiness clearly was never in a situation where they made enough money to live the life they desired OR they never were poor enough to worry about being homeless. Wallace Wattles, author of The Science of Being Rich says that very often frugal individuals tend to be less prosperous than those who spend freely. I try to be frugal in areas I won’t notice, like with my underwear but not my bras or discount nail polish but not foundation. Life just seems lame if you can’t have the type of steak you want every few months (I know, first world problems).
I worry a lot about being homeless one day, is that a normal concern for millennials? Maybe. We make much less than our parents did comparatively while the cost of living has increased substantially. I imagine myself losing job after job and living in my car at age 52 or something, and just hating life. But then I insist on buying expensive pasta sauce because what is the point of living unless you get to enjoy small things like quality marinara?
Like most Americans I’ve thought about what I would do if I were to win the lottery…here it is folks- pay off my debt, then pay off my mother’s debt, then pay off my friends’ debts and then quit my job and go volunteer somewhere. Invest the remainder so I can travel and donate to charities. I don’t want to buy a Louis Vuitton bag or twelve houses- and there is nothing wrong if that is what people want to spend their money on- but the whole point of having money is to live your best life. The best life does not mean buying things to me, it means making others lives easier and more pleasurable. Money offers you the ability to embrace yourself fully, and that gives back in the long term to the world at large, and we need more people living their truth to help make this place better (minus the serial killers).
So how does one actually get out of debt when they keep getting deeper in. How do they live frugally enough but still call it living. I am not saying that only those of a certain income bracket have lives, but I will say it may be easier for people who don’t live alone. To have someone (besides your cat) to spend nights in with, making cheap dinners, can at least bring you moments of joy, much more frequently than those spent alone trying to do the same thing. Does loneliness make you indebted? I am not saying it is easy for anyone to get out of this, it’s heavy and hard and requires patience, and diligence and sticking to a plan. But the plan gets old when it’s just you.
I’d imagine what I am lamenting here is how do I get to keep my non-negotiables (Rao’s Marinara and Ever Clean Cat Litter) and still get out of debt? Where do I make sacrifices and still live a life of quality? Do I just stay at home for the next five years except when I go to my unfulfilling job ?
I have a friend who is working at paying down her debt currently, which she has done before and she really sticks to it, which I admire more than I’ve ever told her. I have another friend who worked her butt off to pay off student loans and is now in grad school. While I have never thought it is easy to pay down debt I do think at least they had partners to watch shitty DVDs with while eating boxed store brand macaroni. Those connections made them rich in ways that sustained them, in ways it can be hard to do as a single person, even one with a ton of hobbies. The pragmatist in me feels I need to handle it myself, which isn’t to say they didn’t, but to have someone to be able to laugh with you during those periods of poverty seems like something I’d trade Rao’s for any day.
(jk, I’m never giving up the Rao’s)
too fat to be italian 