I found myself in a rut. I was innocently walking from dinner at the Curb Cafe one night (when I still attended Belmont), and saw this table set up handing out free t-shirts. These were AWESOME t-shirts, so I decided to stop by to check them out. The man behind the table yelled, "Sign up here, and you'll get one of these shirts, and build your credit so that you'll be able to buy a house and a car right after you graduate!" "Whoa!", I thought. "A crack at the good ol' American Dream is as easy as signing my name on a piece of paper?"
My first Discover bill arrived in the mail about thirty-six days later, just thirty days after my card arrived. It was a beautiful card too-- a piano with a warm orange glow, perfect for a pianist like myself. I wanted to show the card to EVERYBODY; the barista, the guy at the guitar store, the awkward store manager at the Posh Boutique in Hillsboro Village, the server at P.F. Chang's, and the list goes on. So, of course, I was a little bit shocked when my bill arrived after that first month. It was so nice to hear that sound of my card running through the machine, to buy things with a mere swipe of a card and a MY BILL WAS THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS!
So, after the initial shock wore off, I managed to make a transfer from my savings account, pay off the balance, and calm down. I put the card back in my wallet and vowed to take it easy next month. About a week before my birthday, I got something in the mail from Discover. I opened it, knowing full well that it couldn't be my bill-- it was too early in the month! Guess what? A free $50 iTunes gift card! This was awesome! These people really WERE my friends!
I charged and charged until I completely depleted all of the savings that I had worked hard for in the eight months before I started college working three jobs, and then charged some more. And then, soon, I went from paying off my balance in full every month and getting gift cards to paying minimum payments and getting phone calls. This wasn't fun anymore.
I decided that Discover was no longer my friend. I could not go on any longer racking up more and more debt with a company that wanted my money more than it wanted to give me free stuff. Enter Capital One. With its promise of "No Hassles", I was determined that I could use this card without risking my financial security. These must be really nice people, like they appear to be in the commercials, and they were there to help me build a future. The only problem was that this time, I had no money in savings to pay off the bills, and my job only paid me about $150 a month. So, as you might suspect, my positive relationship with Capital One only lasted about two months. Then, I was stuck.
With $65,838 of student loans, $2637 of credit card debt, no hope, and two pretty cards in my pocket, I felt like this crack at the American dream was nothing more than the stuff of pipes. I had been promised a nice house and a nice car as a result of using my piano key Discover Card. I had been promised a "hassle free" life by Capital One. Instead, my paychecks were already divided amongst those whom I owed money, and nothing was MINE anymore. I was being trained. I had the stuff, but it was all theirs. And later, I'd have the house and the car, but they'd be the property of the bank.
When I looked at the life I was creating for myself and my fiancee, I didn't see any way I could be happy living like this. I imagined winning the lottery, making it big as a rockstar and selling millions of albums worldwide. I imagined selling the next great American novel, or inventing the next Chia Pet--anything to get me out of this rut. My dreams were no longer tangible goals, but merely things that I hopelessly reached for in order to imagine a life where I wasn't behind, over burdened, and overweight (which I'll get to later).
Enter Dave Ramsey.
I remember this moment very clearly. I was in a dorm room in Cambridge, England, doing a bit of studying when my fiancee (now wife) called me on Skype to chat. On the other end of the video chat was a girl who looked about like I felt at that moment--hopeless and worried. She had taken my advice to do one of those "90 Days same as cash" deals on a new laptop, and was now over her head in credit card debt, that like me, had crept up over a matter of months. She was crying, telling me how she didn't know how people could live like this and that she felt really overwhelmed and discouraged. I tried to comfort her, telling her that people lived like this all the time and that eventually she'd get it paid off. But my words of encouragement weren't helping. It was evident that I had no plan of action, and that my words were empty. Besides, it's not like I was the Lao Tzu of financial security. She calmed down a bit, and started talking to me about this guy, Dave Ramsey, and how he'd helped people get out of debt by motivating them to work hard and sacrifice. She directed me to the blog of one of her friends, who had pledged to pay for her first house with cash, and I was floored. I thought, "I remember this guy! He's that Financial Peace University nutjob!" I used to make fun of the people at church who would talk about how much they had changed their lives for the better by becoming debt free. "Why would you ever want to pay for a house with cash? What about equity? Tax benefits?" But then I remembered something... the same people who talk about equity and tax benefits are the ones who talked to me about free t-shirts, iTunes gift cards and a life in debt. Maybe this guy knew something that I didn't. Maybe I should give it a try.
That day, I made a decision to free my bride-to-be of the debt burden she was facing by paying off her credit cards with leftover money from my student loan. This was STUPID, I know, but at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. So, since Dave Ramsey only accepts Debit and she didn't have any more minimum payments, she was able to save up, buy us a kit, and sign us up for a class that we would finish right after we said our vows.
From the first class, I was blown away. It seemed strange that all this time, I had been living without a plan. But now I had one. My view of debt completely changed, I cut up all my credit cards, payed off all my balances, and cancelled them one by one. And as they offered me higher credit limits, lower interest rates, and more cashback rewards, I just laughed and told them that I thought debt was dumb and that I was no longer playing. I thought, "This is fun."
Through this whole experience, Shandus and I have made a few goals that we plan to achieve before we die. We believe that these will greatly bless our marriage and help to change our family tree.
1) Get out of debt (student loans) in less than 2.5 years.
2) Get into a house in less than 6 years (paid for with cash).
3) Become multi-millionaires by the age of 40.
4) Fund our children's educations.
5) Endow a scholarship.
6) Bless our parents with the financial security they deserve.
7) Help educate others about the importance of a debt-free lifestyle, and how it can radically change lives!
It's weird how liberating having a plan can be. But if normal is broke, I WANT to be weird.
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