It’s been 6 months since my husband and I sat down and got honest with ourselves and said “We Have Debt.” Sure, we considered it a new debt, but it was a new debt that was spiralling out of control.
To be particular on what kind of debt, it was our consumer debt.
Stats say the average consumer debt is $15,000. Consumer debt is things that don’t depreciate. Like, going out to eat or clothes.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I like that quote. I like the idea that we are not alone. There is a comfort that comes from that. When we decided to share our struggles, we didn’t know what to expect besides a bit of embarrassment. The outpouring of honesty on social media and on the comments section of Mommy’s Weird was really surprising. Sure, there was the odd person that told us what to do to get out of debt, which didn’t bother me, but we knew what we had to do. It’s like telling a fat person how to lose weight. HELLO?! We know.
This was our plan.
- Make more $ and put it directly on our debt.
- Spend less money on things that add up to consumer debt.
We mostly did #2.
Lots of the habits we did in our 30 Day Eat At Home Challenge have stuck.
But, mostly we just paid attention to things without making large changes to our lifestyle.
We still made some large purchases of things this summer that we probably didn’t need like a new chair for our living room, summer day camp and sleep away camps for our kids. We flew to Toronto. We went to Manitoba. I’m still going to see Justin Timberlake on a girls trip to Edmonton.
We even bought a tent trailer. Oddly, we had the money for that, which makes no sense.
You see, as I told you 6 months ago when I shared our debt, my husband and I are really good at saving, but not good at paying down debt. In hindsight, I see that we probably saved money that we didn’t really have to begin with. I guess I like to keep my head in the sand and feel really good about the money we put away every month for the kid’s education and for our retirement. We still have a 6 month rainy day account that makes me giddy. Should we use it to pay down our debt? Probably.
In the last 6 months we have paid $2400 on our lines of credit.
I know at that rate it’s going to take us a handful of years to pay it off. And if I am truly honest, I don’t know if we will be able to do it. $2400 is not enough. $400 a month is not enough. We will probably have to make some changes to our lifestyle if we really want to get out of this hole.
I mean, I still want to take the kids on an amazing road trip next summer or possibly San Diego or New York….
I’m scared about overspending at Christmas. I am scared about my daughter’s competitive dance season. I am scared about that damn retaining wall in the backyard. I am scared that the car is going to break down.
All I know for sure is that the numbers are going in the right direction and we cannot let this hole get any bigger.