My Financial Journey – From Debt and Panic to Surviving, Now Thriving

We all occasionally find ourselves in situations we didn’t necessarily mean to get into. I’ve been there before, and for me, it was a deep dark hole of debt – one big bad boo boo to say it nicely. I made several financial mistakes, all piled up on top of each other, within a short period of time and as I’m sure you can imagine, they all came back to haunt me very quickly. So if you have found yourself in a situation you don’t like, hang tight, make an action plan, and work it.

I believe 100% that anyone can do this – anyone can reach abundance in their life, but not without intention and focus, as I discovered. Here are some major details (and there are more to come in other posts!) about how this happened to me and how I achieved debt freedom- and you can too – despite the odds.

Suddenly, or so it seemed, I found myself drowning in debt, desperate to make ends meet, and in full panic mode to secure my family’s future. We didn’t have enough cash to make our mortgage payment, pay for daycare, the car payment, and the $800 in minimum credit card payments that were required each month. (Um, yep, you read that right!) Our cash was spent before we had it and we were using our credit to buy groceries each week.

How on earth did this happen? This was not the #wokeuplikethis moment I was going for. This wasn’t the life I wanted or how I expected to live. We both had good jobs, degrees, and didn’t live an extravagant lifestyle. So, what happened? How did we get here? And how on earth did we wind up with so much debt?!?!?!

The Compounding Effect Works Both Ways

I’d spent the prior few years ignoring the numbers and just figuring that it would all work out. It always had before, so why not now? At 27, I’d made the choice to restart my career in a new field so I could actually use my degree, we’d started a family of our own which came with daycare costs and medical bills. Most of all, I’d been assisting my mom through her divorce. Assisting isn’t really the right word- I was fully funding her divorce and helping her pay bills to keep a roof over her head. 

During those years, not only did I have all the challenges that come with new motherhood, all while starting over on the pay scale, but I also felt a deep sense of sadness for what my mom’s 50 years of life had come to. Her situation tugged at my heart and I could see how my innate planning skills were needed, so I just HAD to help her when she came to me. She suddenly, or so it seemed, found herself with no husband, no money, and no knowledge of how to navigate in this world on her own. 

Helping Mom

I quickly became her counselor, her advisor, and her manager. I swooped in with my super hero cape on and helped her find a divorce attorney, assisted her in making ends meet, guided her through the process of getting a job, and showed her how to market herself and get cash paying gigs on care.com to supplement.  In fact, within 3 days of my second baby being born, she moved in with me as opposed to becoming homeless. 

I felt so much conviction to help her and I couldn’t imagine being her age and having to start over with nothing, so out went my heart and all my money with it. She needed all the help she could get and I didn’t see anyone else signing up. I was torn – I knew it wasn’t  my responsibility, yet she needed someone to step up to guide her through it all. I kept thinking, wouldn’t my kids be there for me? 

Flipping The Switch

Then the guilt and the anger would take over and I’d think, there’s no way in hell I’d ever expect my kids to do this for me! This is just too much! And there, you have it, the “me” I am today was born. I vowed to dig out of this hole of debt and never return. I vowed to set up our family so that I never have to depend on anyone else for help. I also vowed to teach my children about money and help them get set up so that the cycle doesn’t repeat itself further down the line. 

There was a specific moment when all of this hit me. I was holding my newborn baby girl thinking about how sweet her little face was while listening to and being comforted by the sound of her breath. Meanwhile, I looked up and smiled at my toddler playing with his toys quietly nearby and simultaneously choked back tears of fear and regret that our financial life was overshadowing this sweet moment with brewing storm clouds. I sat there trying so hard to contain my feelings about our finances, but it was too late. This and many, many other moments when I should have been fully present with our new tiny family were stolen away by this looming financial storm cloud. 

Hindsight is 20/20

I’ll never ever get those moments back. I’ll never get the chance to re-do them. My problem solver brain was alway churning, and I was so scared, sick-to-death, and desperate to get us out of this hole that I wasn’t able to just enjoy the precious moments with my babies. 

I was mentally absent from nearly every moment of my son’s life before the age of 4 and my daughters life prior to the age of 2. I have little-to-no memory of those years and it absolutely kills me. Unlike many moms where hormones or the fog of early motherhood and sleepless nights can take the blame, I know that I wasn’t present in those moments because I was too busy concocting a plan to get out of debt. This is where I’m ultra thankful for pictures I’ve loaded on Snapfish & Facebook – so I can look at the memories with fondness and be happy that I captured their sweet faces at that time. Otherwise, those moments were completely stolen away from me. 

That moment in my rocking chair choking back the tears and realizing all the precious memories that I was missing out on was my breaking point. My heart was pounding and my head was spinning. All we had was 20$ in our bank account and the next pay period was two weeks away. What on earth were we going to do?!? That was it, I’d had it! I was sick and tired of living like this! My kids didn’t deserve this and neither did we. We had done everything we could to help and the line had to be drawn. 

Realizing the Importance of Intentionality

It took me years to realize the biggest mistake was made because I over-empathized the feelings I had about my parents’ marriage falling apart and feared them reoccurring in my own marriage. I allowed my sympathy for their relationship problems and my disappointment in my father’s actions and my mother’s helplessness to impact my life.

Now I was determined to halt this pattern in its’ tracks. I never in a million years wanted my own kids to wake up one day and discover everything they believed and the people they’d looked up to their whole lives were just a shell of lies like I had. 

I often wondered how it was possible for people to go from such a loving relationship and the excitement of starting a new family, like what my husband and I currently felt in our own family, to having 20-30 years pass only to end up in a relationship suffering from the wrath of one’s hatred and deceit. My eyes were opened to the polar opposites of what COULD be.

I began to realize that if you don’t focus on the result you actually want, you’ll end up with a result you really dislike. I could see the myriad of possibilities in any category- relationship, health, finances, children, anything and everything had to be intentional. 

Inward Reflection

That’s exactly what had happened to our finances and what would happen to our marriage and our family as well – if things didn’t change. It was at that time when I realized I had the power to change everything. I had the power to take control of what was spent when, what money came in and out, and how to navigate my money with intention toward the abundant life I wanted, but definitely didn’t have. I knew my actions had a profound effect on our relationship, our cash flow, and the one that really brought tears to my eyes- my children’s future. I had the power, right this second, to draw lines in the sand and change our trajectory. 

I realized my tendency to just jump to help every damsel in distress and the result that played out as a result of my lack of boundaries with my generosity. I’d witnessed my parents’ relationship dynamic changing all throughout my childhood but I was “too close”. I was unable to see how bad their relationship really was because I had never been exposed to anything else. I started to look at my own marriage, inspect for similarities, and focus on repairing them before we fell into the same pattern. 

I examined the financial mistakes we made and broke them down to when, why, and how we made that decision. Believe it or not, each one was made out of fear, blind acceptance, or lack of knowledge. I was so unintentional about things for such a short, yet such an imperative period of time, that this mountain of debt “just happened” to us. This was the last time I’d ever allow things to uncontrollably happen to me, I became a storm cloud of my own, brewing with passion and a new conviction- It was MY job to get us out of this.

The $20K Mistake

One major mistake I identified was our purchase of a new car. We didn’t know it at the time, we thought it was a solution to our transportation problem. But I wasn’t keen on the trickery that is spewed at us left and right, on every commercial ad, in print, and on every screen. They are here to “help” you with great financing and a shiny new dependable ride, that’s what the car manufacturers and the advertisers want you to think, right? Here’s how it played out: 

When my son was only 4 months old, I received a call that my husband had to leave his vehicle at the sitters house- he’d barely made it there, with smoke billowing from the engine, to drop off our son and borrowed her car to get himself to work. We soon found that the radiator had blown, the engine overheated, and this repair was going to be more than the vehicle was worth itself.

So, we did what every young, scared, financially strapped couple does, we bought a brand-spankin-new $28,000 Toyota Camry. We fell prey to the 0% interest “special” from the dealer because we “needed” a reliable mode of transportation. In fact, I remember the car buying process very clearly – we had only $500 (literally – I only had $30 additional in our bank account) to put down and I was firm that the payments could not be over $500 a month. We tried to be smart and negotiate the purchase to the best of our ability and not look desperate, but we were. 

I have no idea how I thought we could come up with the extra $500 each month to pay for this car, since it’s not like we had and extra $500 any month prior to that. I just expected we’d figure it out, make it work, or whatever other hullabaloo you mutter to yourself when you feel forced into a situation and you don’t really know what you’re doing. Fake it till you make it, right? Wrong. Worst advice ever. 

Fake it till you make it, right? Wrong. Worst advice ever. 

The $60K Mistake

The next and largest financial mistake of all was overcommitting to funding my mom’s divorce. I led with my soul and didn’t evaluate the numbers, which led to every piece of credit we had being maxed out. When I initially told her we’d help her out, I thought surely her divorce could get up to around $20K but not more than $30k. For whatever reason, I thought it would be hard, but that we could handle that. 

I blindly thought that with two incomes and only one child, we were doing well enough to help, and I knew for sure that we were able to provide much more help than she was going to get anywhere else. A couple years later the divorce price tag, complete with special investigators’ fees and countless appeals and court dates, had ballooned to about $60,000. I hadn’t been adding the bills up as we went, I had only been focused on juggling credit cards and just trying to pay for anything that came my way. 

The weight of $60K in debt was like carrying around a ton of bricks day in and day out, especially since we had nothing to show for it. No one could see it- we still looked “normal” to everyone else- life didn’t stop, but I felt it. We still had utilities, daycare, the mortgage, the car and other normal incidentals to pay for. 

Boundaries Required

I became resentful because while it wasn’t MY burden to bear, I’d blindly signed up for it. I questioned why on earth I’d been put in this position and was frustrated at her helplessness. I was passionate about helping her, but had no idea the cost would get so out of hand. It’s not the same as buying a Mercedes or some gorgeous furniture where you get to enjoy the luxurious ride or appreciate your beautiful  home decor on your comfy couch each night. We had a mountain of debt and had gained nothing.

You’re in control. All you have to do is steer.

This is where I learned probably the most valuable lesson of all, to set boundaries. I now know that I was the one in control, I just never touched the steering wheel. I never once set a limit to how much I was willing to pay for this endeavor. I did a poor job of setting boundaries with my time and my energy that I allowed to be used by the divorce, so I often had little to nothing left for my husband or my sweet babies. This divorce became a monster that sucked the time, energy, attention, money, and therefore, my ability to step back and make good decisions, out of me. 

Under-Prepared, Over-Due

One more financial pitfall I totally drowned in was under-anticipating the costs of child delivery and day care. Having one child was one thing, but having two under the age of two was a whole new ball game. We paid between $800- $1200 per month per kid at times for care during the work day. 

I was astonished at the hospital and delivery costs- $10,000 to have a baby, are you kidding me? How do people afford to have kids? As with all else, it went on credit and we just had to figure it out. 

Panic Mode

There were so many mistakes made in a 3 year period that they suddenly all accumulated and hit me like an avalanche. I called the credit card companies and negotiated temporary payment arrangements, interest reductions, and hardship statuses. I started following all the financial gurus’ advice and paying cash for all expenses, forcing us to quit the credit game. I sold things, changed our shopping habits, and comparison shopped like crazy. 

I focused simultaneously on increasing our income AND decreasing our expenses. Our homeowner’s policy, car insurance, electricity provider agreement, and any other contract-based item we needed was reviewed, the company called, and a new cheaper agreement was reached. We cut our cable and switched to a less expensive cell service provider (Net 10). 

I was diligent about combing through every possible facet of our financial lives- anything and everything we paid for got evaluated, and if it was too expensive or not worth it at all, it was trimmed. 

Bumpy Road Ahead

Long story short, we all survived. We avoided bankruptcy, didn’t get the car repossessed, and didn’t have to move. Not without a few bumps and bruises and definitely with a few lessons in my pocket. It took us from 2012 until 2016 to pay off all credit card debt completely and then one more year to pay off the car as well. From start to finish, our journey was 3 years long and was not complete without a few bumps in the road. 

So, it’s possible- maybe your debt has a different label- maybe it’s a car, student loans, IRS debt, a second mortgage, or other reason, but just the same- it’s possible to dig out. And no, at no time during our journey did we have a household income over $100K. 

We pinched pennies, ate rice and beans, and only spent $10 to go out to eat (yes, it’s possible!). We were obsessed with ditching debt and not afraid to be weird or crazy, because we knew that there was no other way. I knew, without a doubt, that this was the only way I was going to have a chance to change my children’s trajectory in life. 

Now It’s a Success Story

Regardless of what your challenges look like, and whether they are financial or otherwise, and no matter what label they have or why or how you got there, you CAN do this. You CAN overcome them. Maybe it will take 3 years of intention and focus, maybe it will take falling off the wagon and getting back on countless times over those 3 years. Who cares though? It’s all about the result or the goal or the “new life” you’ll have in the end. 

This journey shaped who I am today and created my passion for helping moms with their finances. I’ve read every book, followed every guru, read all the blogs, listened to all the podcasts, taken the classes, devoured the material, and learned so much along the way. I made the mistakes so that you don’t have to! I sorted through all the “free” advice, applied things, tried strategies, and am on this earth to shorten other mama’s journeys and help them avoid the missteps no one warned me about. 

I’m here for you. Use me as a resource. I’ve been there, and I’m here now to guide you so you don’t feel lost like I did- like you have to figure it out on your own or figure out whose advice out there really works. This isn’t a place for judgment or embarrassment, only helpful action steps and mindset adjustments to get you on the right track. I did it, and I fully, without a doubt, no question in my mind, believe you can do it too.