Beginning 30K Later...

Hi. My name is Sam and I have $30,000 in credit card debt.

I often ask myself how I got to this point. I'm not a shopaholic--not really at least. It's not medical bills. I wasn't laid off. I am not a victim of credit card debt. I allowed this to happen...but it wasn't overnight.

I'll start at the beginning.

I had worked at a credit union part-time for four and a half years while in high school and college. During that time I learned so much about finances. In these years I actually decided one of my lifetime goals--to someday have a FICO score above 800. I wanted perfect credit and I thought I was on the fast track to getting it. I knew it would still take some time but I already had some building blocks in place. I had a credit card and I paid it off every single month.

And then I met my husband. We had a long distance relationship for the first year which meant quite a bit of driving and flying to see each other. This ended the paying off the credit card every month. After he served his four years in the military we planned to move to Tennessee, closer to where he grew up and 1,000 miles away from my home. We moved into an apartment and quickly bought the things we would need to make our life together. Looking back the 52-inch plasma probably wasn't the brightest idea at the time but we still enjoy it today. We made quite a few choices that may not have been the best but at the time we could do no wrong. My husband and I were both unemployed but he was waiting on a job that he had in line. However, the security clearance needed for this job required months of background checks and waiting. I was in school full-time still and only able to work part-time.

After 6 months of living together and racking up enormous amounts of debt we got married. It was a wonderful day. Exactly what I had imagined. But that didn't come cheap either. About a week after the wedding my husband and I sat down to completely look at our finances. We made a decision that we would no longer use our credit cards. It was a glorious day...our first step to debt freedom. Our one month wedding anniversary was my husbands first day at work. Months of his unemployment and my part-time work didn't cover our expenses so we were now $30,000 in debt (credit card debt alone!!!). It was finally the time to turn our life around and take hold of our finances. That was 6 months ago.

So far I really don't have too much of a plan. I want to attack this debt and just get rid of it but I can't. We can make barely the minimum payments on our cards and other debts and expenses. I can tell now that this is going to be a very slow process but I know it will be incredibly rewarding.

Small progress makes a big difference.