Credit Card Debt and Sacrifices

The Move to North Carolina

I didn't get into debt overnight, but getting into debt was easy. Surprise! Getting out of debt won't happen overnight either and it will also require sacrifices along the way.

In Summer of 1997 prior to our deciding to eliminate our credit card debt we took the kids to Asheville, NC to do some camping and show the kids where we would be moving to.

I was preparing for a new career and retiring from the Navy the first week of July 98. I had been sending out resumes left and right to the Asheville, NC area (Remember that I was in Maine and had no friends or family in the Asheville area).

I had been scouring the internet for leads and came across one lead that fit me to a tee. The only problem is it was in the central North Carolina area and my wife and I were looking forward to the beautiful mountains. I had a couple of jobs in the western end of the state that I thought would pan out but the pay was the minimum that we thought we needed to make up for my current pay as a senior enlisted member of the Navy. The job in central NC could have been my job description for my Navy job. I had been doing this type of Information Technology management for a over a decade so I sent off an application.

I let my wife know that I applied for a position with a University that was well outside of where we were intending to live. She said she would be willing to sacrifice if the pay was X dollars (which would help us eliminate our debt). Well as luck would have it I was one of the 100+ applicants that got interviewed. They did a phone interview with me in Maine. After the first round I was their choice so they flew me down to North Carolina for a second round of interviews. When I flew back I was reasonably sure they would make me an offer, but what they were talking was $2,000 lower than the X dollars my wife desired to make the sacrifice.

It is now mid June I am about to have my retirement ceremony and would be leaving in less than 3 weeks. Currently all of my moving paperwork with the Navy still says that my stuff will be moved to Asheville. The Navy also said my final chance to change that destination had passed. It was at this point that the HR department of the University called and offered me the position. I accepted the offer and set a start date. I then let my wife know that we weren't going to be living in a box, I did get a job.

The catch however was that we were going to be living in Greensboro, North Carolina. The good news was that I was offered the exact amount my wife stipulated to when I initially applied for the position. My new boss later said she fought to get the amount increased by 2k because she didn't think I would accept the position where it was. She never knew my wife's bottomline, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

We sacrificed the dream of living in the mountains, a place which we had visited and fell in love with to move to a place we didn't know.

How did our sacrifice payoff?

The extra dollars did help us get out from debt easier, we were able to stick to our repayment plan. When one credit card was paid off that amount was rolled over to start paying more on another credit card. If we had not made the sacrifice we would have needed to pull back the money into the family budget when a card was paid off and we would still be paying off our debt.

How did Greensboro turn out?

Well we have been in the Greensboro area now for 7 years and we couldn't have picked a nicer place to live. The people are great and it is a fantastic place to raise a family. Neither of us were from North Carolina but it fit my wife's 5 hour rule. The rule states that we needed to live at least 5 driving hours from either of our parents (how can you not love a woman with this kind of rule). We are now over 10 hours from either parents.

Wait a minute, what happened to my stuff slated to go to Asheville?

I went to the department that said I had missed my last chance to change my destination of my stuff and told them that my stuff needed to be sent to Greensboro not Asheville. The young lad tried to hold the party line and reiterated that it was too late to change. I told him calmly that I have been in for 22 years and that not only could my destination be changed but that it will be changed and to go ask his boss how this was going to take place. He scurried off then came back and said that they could do it and to write on my package the new destination. A week later when the movers came you better believe that I checked their paperwork to make sure they had Greensboro down for the destination. Even then the motto "trust but verify" was applicable.