Staying Out of Debt with a Debt Consolidation Plan of Action
By editor | September 19, 2008
As much as I hate to admit it, my family and I are struggling. This economy is not a joke at all. It seems almost every week economists argue whether or not this country is in a recession. Some say “yes” while others say “no”. Well, I’m a mom and I can tell you straight off that this country is in recession. All I have to do is take a trip to the grocery store and that seals the deal for me. I have never seen the cost of eggs and milk and meat be so high. I can’t believe it!
It is really hard to have to cut back on the things we have enjoyed doing as a family like traveling and eating out, but times are hard, gas is high, and so is everything else. Our electric bill has gone up steadily for the past three months, which is quite ridiculous. And I lost my job as a part-time receptionist at a doctor’s office; my boss just brought his wife to take my place when once she was a stay-at-home mom. I can’t fault him, he had to do what he had to do to keep his business afloat. Plus, he gave me a nice financial package for doing a great job over the years when I left. Since then it’s been harder and harder to make it every day. Since I haven’t been able to supplement my income, we’ve begun living off our credit cards. What a real bridge to nowhere! Using your credit cards for everything is not a good feeling. In fact, it is really the pits.
My husband and I sat down the other day and decided that we were going to put out heads together, cut back, way back, and think about debt consolidation. We have always been great with our bills and our credit was great, but over the past six months, things have not been good at all. Sometimes it seems as though we are the only ones struggling so badly, but surely there have to be others out there who are struggling just as much as we are. Being riddled with debt and not being able to pay your bills on time is not a happy place to be.
One of the things that made my husband and I decide to get our finances in order was the phone calls and letters from debt collectors. I can barely even sleep at night anymore knowing that in the morning while I am at home with the kids I will get four or five calls a day asking us to pay our bills. The thing is, we know we have bills that are due. We just need a little extra time paying them. So, eventually my husband and said enough is enough. We are getting our finances under control before it becomes too much and we can’t control it at all.
I grew up in a house that was torn apart, really, by financial instability. It’s not a fun place to be. I don’t want my kids seeing me stressed out and I hate being stressed out myself. We are going to do something about it and fast and get this monkey off our backs!
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Topics: debt consolidation |