Lacey’s Credit Card Debt Story

Guest Post by Lacey Cook

Hello all. My name is Lacey Cook, and this is my personal credit card debt story. I was always taught to spend my money wisely. From the age of eight, I started to save for my first car. By the time I turned 18, I had saved enough to buy a six year old car at about $8,000. I paid in full with a check, and I’d never felt so great.

After that, I went off to college, where I had some trouble keeping my finances afloat, but I made it through with the help of my parents. After graduation, I got married and started a new chapter of my life. That’s where everything started to go south. I had no student loans or credit card debt, and we’d just got a few thousand dollars for our wedding, but that wasn’t enough. He was about $40,000 in debt from student loans and credit cards, and we had no way of paying our bills. We struggled to find jobs, and we ended up having to use my credit cards to make ends meet for the first few months of our marriage.

Finally, we found jobs and started to slowly dig our way out of the hole. Everything was great, but we still wanted something more, so we decided to get a dog. We went to the pound to adopt one, and found the most adorable little puppy I’d ever seen. She was fun, yet still wanted to cuddle, and I knew she would be the perfect addition to our new little family. We spent our weekly budget for groceries on her and decided to eat bologna and mac and cheese to tide us over.

The second day after we got her, she started to look lethargic, and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t sick so I took her to the vet. Turns out, she had a very draining virus that could have killed her if we hadn’t caught it in time, and even with the treatment, she still only had about a 50% chance of survival. I handed over my credit card. Two days and nearly $2,000 later, we finally got to take her back home to nurse her back to health.

We knew, at that point, that we had to make some drastic changes in our spending to get us back out of debt. We sat down, made a list of all of our monthly expenses, and created a budget to suit our life. I started clipping coupons and stopped buying name brand items to cut down our grocery bill. We discontinued our cable bill as well and used digital rabbit ears instead. We cut down our budget so much that we were able to start paying way more than the minimum payment on our debts each month, which I know is important when you are trying to save your credit score.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re getting there as fast as we can. In fact, we’ve been so successful, that we’re also able to put away a little money each month to start a retirement fund. I know you may be thinking that we shouldn’t have to worry about such things yet because we’re young and have plenty of time, but I have realized that I definitely don’t want to have to work until I’m too old to stand. The sooner a person starts to save for retirement, the sooner they can actually retire. I am determined and motivated to get out of this debt and live my life to the fullest.

Author Bio:
Lacey Cook is an author who writes guest posts on the topics of business, marketing, credit cards, and personal finance. Additionally, she works for a website that focuses on educating readers about getting their first credit card.