I was worried. I went to college and thought I'd done everything right to be strong and independent- but here I was worried about money, again. It was keeping me tied down and that needed to change.
I felt stressed. I'd crack open my laptop and see all the student debt coming due. Another month had come and gone and I'd barely paid enough to touch the principle or even make a dent on the interest. Workdays would come and I'd put my best foot forward, be a team player, earn my pay but when my paycheck came it went right to paying everyone back for my college degree, my new car, ...my debts.
When I thought about my days and how I spent so much time earning my paycheck, all I saw was someone hustling to pay other people back, someone with the tiny dream of getting out of a negative net-worth, someone surrounded with debt with little hope for a way out in sight. I thought my life in my 20s after college, would mean I could finally enjoy not having a project due or a research paper to work on. I thought it meant I could live my own version of a life syllabus, where I wrote the rules and I decided what an 'A' meant to me.
I thought after college, life would be whatever I wanted it to be and
that I would be college-educated, making a life for myself. Yet, here I was feeling chained to debt and tied down. Never really truly free, not truly independent. I spent so much focused on paying it down that I spent an equal amount of time saying no to having fun. And the times that I did go out, meant that I was paying a big price. I knew it meant that I would only be paying a minimum payment that month which meant that I was only paying down interest while the principle just kept growing.
It's not like I had my life on pause for paying off my debt. For years, I tried to ignore the debt and pretend that I didn't care about it but it followed me everywhere. It followed me to Vegas. It followed me to Disney World. I took it on road trips and the farmers market. I always knew it was there and I always pretend it wasn't in the passenger's seat so that I could instead spend my time and money on LIVING rather than paying.
And I hated to talk about it. I wanted everyone to join me in this fantasy world where debt wasn't real and dream really do come true. It was like everyone was in on the fact that at graduation every student was being sent off with a ball and chain of debt. It was almost a fact of life that it was just something that needed to be lugged around. There wasn't much talk about paying it back. Life was going to be lived paying minimum payments. But what if I wanted a life beyond the ball and chain of debt?
What if I wanted adventure in the great wide somewhere like Belle from Beauty and The Beast?
Still, even though no one talked about it and even with trips and buying cute things, I knew that every month a payment was due and it was like I was due for a reality check. The $40,000 wasn't going to be cast away by breaking some enchanted spell... but a girl can dream. Something needed to change because life is so much more than paying off debt. Debt collectors are cool but I was done thinking about them and I didn't like living my life according to their payment plan... I wanted so much more than they've got planned.
And so much more is what I'm doing now!
There wasn't one particular day that sparked the fire in me to erase my debt. I think it was a series of small tinders until finally, it caught on. I could see that I had been avoiding my debt, that I had bought stuff to distract me from the truth, and that I had a lot of cleaning up to do. I saw the mess I'd made in my own self-talk. I felt guilty for even having debt. I felt like I'd failed because I wasn't able to give back to my family as much as I'd wanted. I told myself that somehow I was a debt to people, a burden, a negative on a spreadsheet.
At some point, I knew I needed to make a change. I was tired of feeling so stressed and worried. I was tired of doubting myself and looking down on my life. I was tired of feeling indebted.
I was ready to go! I was ready to put on my running shoes and pave a new way for myself. I wasn't going to look back- full steam ahead. What I did next, started to clear a path for me- a path toward a clearer, more positive, less-cluttered version of who I was and who I wanted to be.
If you can relate and are ready to get started, DM me, email me. . let's chat. I've now paid off $60K worth of debt and I want to show you how I did it.. and how YOU can do it too.
It's just about getting started! Ask me about Debt-free PRIMA$!