My Debt Free Journey

So the title of this article may be a bit misleading. Or maybe not misleading so much as incomplete. I am on a journey to payoff debt, but I am just at the beginning. 

I spent all of my childhood and most of my adult life ignoring my mounting debt and other financial issues. I suppose it's an occupational hazard of growing up without any money to speak of. I'm the child of a single mother who had to hustle for every dollar she had. Personal finance was never something that was discussed in my house because it was a foregone conclusion that there was never enough money to go around. 

I blundered my way through college, taking out 58k of student loans in the process when I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do. I only knew I needed to get out of being a paramedic. At this point my head was deeply in the sand financially speaking. I was over drafting my checking account every single week to make ends meet and burning myself out working constant overtime on the ambulance while going to school. 

A few weeks before graduation, life as everyone knew it crashed to a halt. The Covid19 pandemic closed everything down and suddenly travel opportunities presented themselves for health care workers. I was deployed to New York City to help with the Covid response and I found myself making more money than I ever had in my life. I realized that I could actually start to get my financial shit together if I made a plan. The only problem was I had no idea what I was doing. 

I started reading books and listening to podcasts about personal finance, trying to make up for a lifetime of ignorance.  I realized that the only way to make progress in my financial goals was to lay out my current situation. When I finally put it together I realized that I was in approximately 30k of credit card debt, no money in my savings account, and no safety net whatsoever. I had never even made a budget. 

Laying it all out felt shameful and terrible, but it was ultimately helpful I was able to make big financial moves over the next 1.5 years due to high wages during Covid. I paid down debt and even bought a house. Then the money dried up and due to a career change and health problems I got myself back in the same situation. 

Now here I am in 2023 with debt I let spiral but this time I have a plan. If you're like me and you let your finances get out of control, don't let the shame eat away at you. We are human beings with complex lives and sometimes money slips through the cracks. 

I will be sharing more about my journey of paying down debt, saving, and investing and I hope you follow me along for the ride.