I mortgaged my future for a hamburger!
Well, okay – not just one hamburger… But one here, one there, a couple for my friends, and some other “stuff” I just had to have, and part of my future was all of a sudden pledged to credit card companies in a debt nightmare.
I should have been able to coast through college pretty easily with just a part-time job. I was living at home, and my parents were helping to support me. I had it really good.
But I got stupid and started living beyond my means.
So then I had to work more hours to be able to pay back my “hamburger debt.” Unfortunately, my professors didn’t feel sorry for me and cut my class hours because I was working more…
I know some people can work a full-time job and still get a 4.0 grade point average. I guess I just wasn’t that smart, because I didn’t get a 4.0. I was lucky just to stay awake in class.
Jeez. I was in a “debt management” spiral and I was still a teenager!
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Don’t worry – we’re not going to add yet another self-indulgent, “life-story” blog to the world. Sure, we’ll talk a bunch about ourselves and experiences so you can learn from mistakes we’ve already made, but we aren’t just going to write for our egos.
We’ll share a bunch of the stuff we’ve learned over the years. After all, if you are like me, you want to know a little bit about who is writing to decide if you even want to pay attention for another 30 seconds…
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And then I got married. It isn’t really debt when you are buying a present or something nice for your wife, right? Yep – turns out it is, just like those hamburgers were.
I can tell you that it doesn’t add much to a marriage, worrying and arguing about debt – but if you’re married, you know that, right? Doesn’t make it too easy to try to buy a house either.
Being in debt was brutal. From the obvious things mentioned above to all kinds of things that you might not even know about (like not getting your dream job because they check your credit report in advance).
So I worked hard. I involved other people so I had some accountability. I studied more advanced concepts in debt reduction like the “debt snowball.” I researched credit cards with longer grace periods and monthly (instead of daily!) compounding.
I made sure that my credit card companies weren’t using “two-cycle average daily balances” and all kinds of other stuff I’d never heard of before I started doing all of this research.
Ultimately, I succeeded in my goal to eliminate debt. But it was tough, and there is no way I could have done it without some of the “secrets” I discovered and the support network I built to keep me on track.
I vowed that once I got myself in a better position, I’d use all of that knowledge and share my systems to help others do the same. Then I asked one of the smartest people I know (my Dad) if he would help and lend some of his financial knowledge as well. He said it was a noble cause and he’d be delighted, so you’ll hear from him as well on these pages.
So if you want to get out of debt, you’re in the right place. Also, keep in mind that once you are out of debt, that magical word called “wealth” starts to make itself available to you!
We aren’t credit counselors or debt consolidators or mortgage lenders that want to refinance your debts. We’re just a couple of guys that learned a bunch about the dirty world of debt, and want to share some knowledge.
If that is what you’re looking for, welcome – we feel honored to have you here.
Oh, and we want this blog to be all about sharing great info – which means we really look forward to your comments. Not much to comment on regarding this post, other than to tell me I was stupid…and yeah, I deserve that!
Sincerely,
Scott Harvey
