So is everyone ready to stuff their stomach's tomorrow? While you are at that task don't forget all the things you are grateful for. There are so many, even though this year has been tough, I am still very grateful for many things; my family for one, a house to live in, my husbands work, health, friends, faith, the list goes on. One thing I am also thankful for is to have not used any credit cards in over 6 months!
Now I know this sounds strange and why in the world would I be grateful for something like that! Well I tell you, I have had credit cards since I was 19, I always thought I could control my spending and I did a great job for the first few years, even after I was married. But then, I think I got comfortable with using them and eventually did not worry about paying them off at the end of the month anymore. Sometimes it was not my fault, completely at least. We would have those regular purchases, a little here and a little there, then we would have those major purchases, such as car repairs or hospital stays or Christmas, those are the ones that put us over where we needed to be.
We and I say we(him and I) have been in and out of credit card debt 3 times and I mean completely vowing to never again get ourselves into that situation. The longest it lasted was 6 months and then the cycle started over, the snakes would bite us every time no matter how much control we thought we had over the snakes.
When we went through our financial downfall in 2010, I could no longer make those credit card payments(couldn't pay the house either) and unfortunately the companies will not work with you until you become behind, I still don't understand that but that is how they work. I even called Mr. Dave Ramsey for advice on my situation in whole as well as for some guidance and help, he helped put my mind at ease because I had never been in a situation like this before and had always made my payments on everything, this felt really wrong but there was nothing else I could do.
Soon, the companies of our credit cards were sending us letters letting us know that they were parting ways with us and closing our accounts, I was actually happy to hear this and would happily pull out the credit card and cut it up and throw it away. Since our credit score was quickly going down, it did not take long before all 5 of our creditors closed our accounts, this left us with two cards that we owed money on to the tune of around 20k. One card let me make a settlement of half, the other let me start making payments.
The only cards now that we have our debit cards and store saver cards, no credit cards do we keep nor use. Hopefully by next summer we will have the other card done away with as well. This of course has helped us to better prepare ourselves financially, we save, we keep track of our money better, save for things we need and cannot purchase right away and also make better spending decisions(do we really need it). We saved for Christmas this year and will be paying cash for everything we buy, we have a budget and will gladly stick to it.
Some people can play with snakes and not get bit, most are not so lucky which is why credit card debit is at an all time high. I know I am one of those that cannot play with snakes and so I don't anymore.
Happy Thanksgiving and be grateful!
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