The Debt Diet Challenge Week #2: Our Participants Weigh In

Melissa

This week was a success because I have already started to see reductions in the debt. We have stopped using credit cards completely, and I am tracking our spending on a daily basis. It has become a part-time job but the rewards are worth it.

We had some tests this week, but I think we passed and it feels good to celebrate the small victories. Our dishwasher broke this week and we called the Sears repairman and paid cash instead of running out to buy a new one. Then a day later, my son dropped our IPad and shattered the front screen. Before the Debt Diet my husband would have used this as an excuse to upgrade to the new version and used credit to do so. We got a quote from the ‘IHospital’ (yes there really is one) and we are going to wait and save up some cash and ship it off to have surgery. I brought my lunch to work every day and did not even feel tempted when my co-workers were ordering out from our favorite local lunch spot. My lunch from home actually tasted better when I realized how much money I was saving eating it. I am trying to find the pleasure in the small things.

Today a colleague of mine invited my husband and me to the Dominican Republic with a few other couples in November. Yet another temptation! The pre-DD me would have jumped at this opportunity to check out a new vacation spot. Four nights was going to run about $2000 all-inclusive. A great deal! The words “book it” were on the tip of my tongue but I instead said we were working with a financial planner to get out of debt and save for the future and wouldn’t be able to go. I am used to being the fun one, always planning the next vacation, always up for something new. This conversation felt like a dry pill stuck in the middle of my throat without any water. Without explaining the gravity of the situation, I do notice there can be a lot of peer pressure to spend and I am guilty of doing this to some of my friends as well. I can remember saying or being swayed with “life is short, everyone is in debt…blah, blah, blah.” Unfortunately I’ve had to realize life can seem very long when you are not living in financial freedom and another vacation isn’t going to help the situation.

I have had to accept that this is going to be a long-term process and I am going to have successes and failures along the way. It took us about 5 years to get into this mess, and I am hoping to find a way to take only half of that time to get out and get on with building a financial nest egg. It is requiring a daily mind shift that I hope will eventually stick and become a way of life. The days of hoping it would all be solved with a lottery ticket or a long lost relative with a large inheritance are gone. Slow and steady wins the race after all, right?

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