Good Morning! Credit Card Debt Rocks!

Nothing says good morning like a lighthearted discussion of your massive credit card debt. Good morning! Try not to suffogate from all the debt on your way to work! Have a nice day!

It actually used to be much worse. The debt, and how we dealt with it. It used to go something like this: Emily tra la las around town, blissfully unaware of all the credit card debt. Knows it's there, but has no idea how much or what is going to be done about it. Tom, meanwhile, is developing ulcers along with Excel Spreadsheets and Budgets and Plans. He is lying awake at night churning in a big vat of guilt, anxiety, and fear.

I have to stop the third person crap now.

Basically, I didn't understand how bad it was. It started when we moved here at 22 years old, with nothing, no start up money, just some hand-me-down furnture and a couple of pots. I worked at Starbucks making 6 bucks an hour while Tom was making the big money as a med student. We were broker than broke. But, having been broke all my life, coming from broke parents, this didn't really stress me out too much. I figured we'd have plenty of time to pay things off when we were grown up, or at least when I no longer was Barista of the Month. I subsequently took jobs that paid more, had better health insurance, benefits, etc., but sadly, didn't have us rolling in it. We made some headway, but much of it was obliterated while we helped pay for our wedding and honeymoon.

This is a long and boring story that leads to this-over the past year, I have educated myself on our credit situation. I have come to understand that getting rid of the debt sooner rather than later will give us the freedom to make certain choices later on in how we live. We have come up with The Plan and The Plan is working. We are down to two cards with large sums of debt on them, but still, it's down to two. Tom does not lie awake, churning, anymore. We think we'll be down to one by the end of spring and have average American credit card debt. Oh, to be average! That milestone will make me want to go buy us a BIG present.

Just kidding!

But man, do I love buying presents.

We just had our first unstressful credit card discussion of maybe ever. It was nice.

We're going to make it after all. (You have to sing that in your head or just isn't the same.)