"The surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some." -George Bernard Shaw
We know what it's like: every month you work hard, countless hours and at the end of the month it feels like you've gotten nowhere financially. You either barely have more than you started with, or worse, you have less than you started with. That second scenario is the way of life for a large portion of America. We used to be that portion even though we had high-paying jobs with great benefits. Where did it all go?
Credit cards!!! (cue horror music followed by a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream)
For us, it was all in the garage and crammed in closets. Tools, a gun collection, art, jewelry, clothes. Then we'd leave all that stuff there and plop down a few grand on a vacation (usually on a cruise ship; not good for wallet, nor belt) that normally involved a healthy dose of gambling (wifey and I were actually pretty good at winning poker tournaments). We were never afraid to swipe that plastic. We had well-paying, steady jobs...woot, woot! Charge it!!!
It eventually caught up to us, as it always will. We looked around and saw how empty our seemingly "full" lives were. Had it not been for a horrible loss in the family and a serious talk about what we wanted to do with our future, we would probably still be in that mess and not living on a sailboat in Mexico this summer. Dodged a bullet on that one!
Stay tuned to future posts and we'll go into more detail on how we climbed out of our pit of death debt.