Life Coaching: Til Debt Do Us Part

I am a blogging slacker. I freely admit this. Most times, I am frantically searching for something to write about at 11:30 the night before this blog is due to be up. I wasn’t always like that. In my former glory days, I was prepared, and I was ready with something write all the time. Nowadays, life is more hectic and finding the time to write something of worth is like mining for gold—tedious and discouraging. However, on those rare days I know I have something relevant to say, it’s worth it. This is not one of those days…

This is one of those days, unfortunately, when my teensy weensy brain is struggling to come up with a topic—any topic—to help folks along with their daily lives. Today—NADA, So, on days like this one, I just kinda go with the flow and take this blog wherever it wants to go (within reason, of course). Because sometimes, it wants to go beyond reason, and I wouldn’t want to frighten the passengers by the ramblings of landing my plane…

I am getting ready to drive somewhere today. It doesn’t matter where. The point is, I’m driving. I’m getting into my newly purchased debt free vehicle and driving. I am not taking that fact for granted. The fact that I’m able to get out of debt, write about it, and hopefully, live the rest of my life like that, really excites me. My sister and I went shopping this week (sorry for the totally segue into a whole other topic, but it’s relevant I promise), and we made a pact—we didn’t allow ourselves to spend more than $20 the entire day (not including lunch). We had plans on going to a couple of different places, but discovered $20 would only take us so far. It took us right down the street to Marshalls. There we spent a happy hour or two looking for something within our budget. We got one item of clothing, but my favorite purchase was a pack of fuzzy socks. For $4.99, we were able to obtain a three pack set of the Holy Grail of fuzzy socks—soft, luxurious, and most of all, budget friendly. I can’t remember a day of such shopping fun.

Living life on a budget isn’t easy, at least not for me. I don’t like it, and it’s hard when Bath And Body Works is having that semi-annual sale. It’s hard when Hobby Lobby marks their yarn 40% off. It’s difficult when I get those coupons from G. H. Bass in my inbox. (Psst…coupon code is FRIENDS30 this week!) But, I learned. I’m an old dog, and I don’t like new tricks. This has been a learning curve and I wasn’t really happy about it in the beginning. But, I’m happy about it now. I’ve learned how to budget my month, how to designate funds (for the most part), and most of all, how to get out of debt.

I didn’t really have a crushing debt to start with, just in case you were wondering, but the debt I DID have was driving me crazy. God wouldn’t leave me alone about it, and so I took steps to remove it. It didn’t happen overnight, and I’m sure there will be times when I’ll have to use my credit to make purchases in the future. I’m not naive enough to think I’ll never have to finance a good or a service in the future. However, for the moment, I’m savoring the sweet taste of victory.

Have a wonderful day!