There are a lot of things that have made digging myself out of the debt hole difficult: my new strict budget, the embarrassment, the lack of accountability, the complete lifestyle change this has necessitated (i.e. no more retail therapy or boredom shopping, learning to live within my means). But as the second month of that new budget moves along and I start getting the hang of not shopping and spending only to pay bills, I'm faced with a new, even more difficult self-inflicted obstacle: my own regret.
Let me put it this way: I funnel almost $700 a month toward paying off my credit card debt (I know it may not seem like much, but when you're working at a nonprofit and getting paid like it, that amounts to a lot). Imagine the things that could be done with that money if it were actually my money to save or spend as I saw fit. There's a lot that I want to do -- just take a look at my Life List -- and putting every spare dollar I make toward my debt can be almost discouraging at times. Especially when that debt is so huge that even with those payments each month, it just doesn't seem to shrink.
It can start to feel hopeless. And really stressful. And that can make the whole process seem like a waste of time.
However, I'm also trying to remind myself that, without having gone through this financial overhaul, I would probably be spending all that debt-funneled money as soon as it was direct deposited into my bank account. Because if nothing else, and regardless of the embarrassment and stress I feel at having stupidly accumulated all of that debt and now having to pay it all off, this has taught me to be much more responsible with my money. I now have plans for when I'm debt free (if that time should ever ever come), and those plans are responsible ones like saving for trips instead of just putting those costs on credit, starting a retirement fund, increasing my emergency fund, and saving for a house (that's a big one isn't it? Yeah, that may not happen for years to come).
So while, as you'll see in my next Blogging Through My Debt post, I won't be free of my credit card debt for a couple of years unless I find a new and better paying job sometime soon, I'm trying to find silver linings in this journey. After all, I'm learning things as I go along and that's more than I could say if I had never made the attempt. And once this is all over, I'll have accomplished something that at times still feels impossible.
