by Amy Newmark
I can’t remember the first thing I charged, but like the first puff of a cigarette, it was my line crosser. I’d entered the world of plastic and it became easier to rely on it with each new swipe. My charge card replaced old tires and covered costly veterinary bills. The minimum monthly payments seemed very reasonable to me and I worried less and less about saying, “Charge it.”
Soon my wallet expanded as I accepted an assortment of department store cards. Each store enticed me with sizable discounts on the day I opened my account. They kept me coming back with mailers promising extra discounts or rewards for my loyal purchases. The more I bought, the more I saved… or so I thought.
A major vehicle repair maxed out my Visa but that didn’t seem to be much of a problem. After all, I was receiving weekly invitations from other banks offering more Visa, MasterCard, and Discover cards. Everyone seemed eager to help me obtain whatever I might need or want without any saving, waiting or planning on my part.
Interestingly, many of my charges were not for me personally. I gave wonderful gifts, especially to my mother. Each piece of jewelry I chose for her on Christmas, Mother’s Day and her birthday cost as much as $500. My friend couldn’t afford the surgery his cat needed, so I charged it. Three of my friends died within a two-year period. At each of the funerals, the extravagant wreath with the banner “Friend” was from me. Meals out with friends and co-workers usually ended with me picking up the tab. If they resisted, I’d say, “I’ll just put it on my card.” You would have thought I had an unlimited corporate expense account instead of the reality: every cent would eventually come out of the Bank of Marsha.
Finally, my charging hit a dead end. I had thirteen well-worn cards and was making the minimum payment on each. Once the interest (18 to 22% annually) was added, the balances didn’t decrease even on cards I’d stopped using. The principal stayed the same.
At this point, my minimum payments totaled $1,270 a month — exactly half of my take-home pay as a teacher. My mortgage took the other half. I thought I’d found my escape from debtors prison when I received a twenty-thousand-dollar book royalty check and I applied almost all of it toward my seventy-thousand-dollar credit card debt. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to set aside money for my income taxes. At the end of the year, I couldn’t pay my federal taxes. The IRS set up monthly installments at 12% interest.
One Christmas I made everyone brownies and these were received with much more enthusiasm than my usual store-bought offerings.
This new monthly bill returned me to my credit cards, no longer maxed out, to pay for essentials like gas and food. About this time, I hit rock bottom. Standing in a grocery store line, I realized my shiny little addiction that had once bought tires, extended Buttercup’s life and made my mom’s eyes light up was now needed for eggs and milk. Like the habitual smoker who finally recognizes the source of that bad taste in his mouth, I was suddenly sick of my dependence on credit cards.
My sister Connie took me to Consumer Credit of Iowa to end the cycle. My counselor totaled my recent statements. Despite my royalty payment, I still owed over fifty thousand dollars.
“You can’t reduce your balances by making minimum payments. The thirteen hundred a month you’re paying isn’t making a dent. Are you ready to give up the cards?”
I gulped. What choice did I have? Resigned, I muttered a barely audible, “Yes.”
“Okay. You need to write to each of your creditors using our form. You will assure them that you intend to repay every penny and NOT use the card before you reach a zero balance.”
“But I can’t pay any more per month. How can I pay them off?” I protested.
“We’ll contact each of your creditors and negotiate a lowered interest rate for you. If you’re not charging and your rates have decreased, your balances will steadily be reduced.”
“How will I know if they agree to lower my rates?”
“We handle all your payments. Each month you send us one check for thirteen hundred dollars and we disperse your payments to your creditors. In effect, they’re making the agreement with us.”
Once in the program, I learned that the lenders agreed to as little as a half percent to as much as a sixteen percent reduction in their interest rates. My monthly statements from Consumer Credit showed how much each account had received and my after payment balance.
The changes weren’t dramatic until the smaller accounts began to be paid in full. When a zero balance appeared on an account, that monthly payment was applied to another account. I was finally making progress!
I continued writing to earn my bread and butter money. Obviously, my teaching money was tied up for the next five years.
After the last bill was paid off, my counselor congratulated me. He couldn’t have been as surprised as I was that I’d made it without charging as much as a pack of gum. Was I cured?
During my five years without credit cards and a limited, irregular cash flow, I developed some of the traits of people who survived the Great Depression. Forget about shopping for trendy new outfits. I now wanted to wear my clothes until they fell apart. Who was treating everyone to dinner now? It certainly wasn’t me. My gifts became more thoughtful and less expensive. One Christmas I made everyone brownies and these were received with much more enthusiasm than my usual store-bought offerings.
When I was finally free to resume using credit cards, I didn’t. For big purchases, I used my debit card and anything under $200 was strictly cash. If I didn’t have the cash, the purchase could, and did, wait.
Weekly offers for store and bankcards still fill my mailbox. Each one has an introductory offer meant to lure me in. They won’t find me signing up for a low introductory rate, discounts on merchandise or cash back rewards. I’ve already ridden on that merry-go-round and I know how hard it is to get off.
~Marsha Porter
Finding My Sparkle
I would rather be adorned by beauty of character than jewels. Jewels are the gift of fortune, while character comes from within.
~Titus Maccius Plautus
When I saw an ad for a jewelry auction in my town, I attended, excited about the prospect of scoring a great deal. After all, what woman can resist a beautiful bauble to make her feel special? It turned out that several baubles caught my eye that day, and I spent a lot more money than I had intended. I took most of the pieces home with me, but one, a bracelet, was a little too big, so the jeweler running the auction said he’d size it for free and mail it to me. When I learned that the estimated arrival date would fall during the few days I’d be out of town for Thanksgiving, I asked him to send it to my parents’ house, instead of the address I had previously given him.
Returning home from the auction, I couldn’t even find room in my jewelry boxes for my latest acquisitions, so I ended up tucking them into a drawer. As I stuffed the boxes behind my T-shirts, I felt a pang of buyer’s remorse. Would I even have any occasion to wear such fancy pieces? If I had thought more about my purchases, rather than letting my bidding enthusiasm carry me away, I would have realized that they didn’t go with my casual lifestyle.
The following week I made the long drive up north to spend Thanksgiving with my family. On the eve of the holiday, I was making a pie in my parents’ kitchen when my father handed me the phone. It was my neighbor Sally, calling to say the police were at my house. Someone had broken in about an hour earlier.
I felt my insides clench and couldn’t breathe. I could hear Sally giving me details of what had happened, but my mind couldn’t process what she was saying. All that registered was that my home — my sanctuary — had been violated, and I was five hours away and helpless to do anything about it.
I set out for home early the next morning, less than twenty-four hours after I had arrived and without even eating Thanksgiving dinner — a ten-hour round trip just to bake a pie. I called a friend and asked him to meet me at my house because I was afraid to go inside alone.
Once home, I talked with Sally and learned that when
my security alarm had gone off, the monitoring station called her when they couldn’t reach me. She came over to investigate and saw a broken window, so she called the police. She handed me a business card for the police officer assigned to the case, and after meeting with him, I inventoried what was missing. Coincidentally, the thieves went straight for my jewelry — they took it all, leaving my TV, camera, and computer untouched. It occurred to me that perhaps they had been at the auction, seen me buy several pieces, and overheard me tell the jeweler my address, along with the fact that I’d be out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday.
I don’t hold onto things as much as I used to. When they no longer serve me, I let them go.
As I itemized the missing pieces and their estimated value, I was appalled by how much jewelry I owned… and had lost. Some items had sentimental value, like the necklace a boy had given me at my sweet sixteen party and a charm bracelet that marked every important event in my life. It was the loss of those that I felt most deeply. My insurance only covered a tiny fraction of what was stolen, so I didn’t try to replace everything. Instead, I saw this as a chance for a new beginning.
I had received some of the jewelry as gifts and didn’t care for it anyway. Other pieces had appealed to me when I bought them, but I had outgrown them; they were no longer me. I made a conscious decision to only buy the bare minimum: a simple pair of gold stud earrings, a pair of silver hoops, a plain gold chain necklace, and a strand of pearls (all costume jewelry, in case they were stolen again). This was all I really needed to accessorize.
After the shock and horror of being robbed wore off, I actually felt lighter, less encumbered, without all that “stuff.” I was almost embarrassed to turn in my multi-page inventory of missing items to the police. They probably wondered; why does one woman need all this? Having only a few pieces of jewelry certainly made it easier to get dressed in the morning. If it weren’t for the awful feeling of violation, I would have wished for someone to break in and take most of my clothes, too!
Years have passed since that angst-ridden autumn. I don’t hold onto things as much as I used to. When they no longer serve me, I let them go. It’s not wasting money or hurting the giver’s feelings, as I once thought. I like to think I’m freeing them up for someone else who really wants them and will use them. Beautiful jewelry deserves to be worn, seen, and adored, not shoved in the back of a drawer and forgotten.
When I was younger, I loved to “try on” new things: new activities, new foods, new people… to see what suited me. Now that I’m older, I finally know myself. These days I’m simplifying my life; with fewer hobbies and commitments, I need less stuff. I can get rid of the dance shoes, athletic gear, and business suits that were part of my old lifestyle, as well as the home furnishings, beauty products, and even people in my life who are no longer right for me. And when it comes to jewelry, I’ve come to realize that I’m not the diamond tennis bracelet type. I had to lose all those sparkling things to find my own sparkle. As I’m paring down my lifestyle and possessions, I’m homing in on the essence of me.
~Susan Yanguas
What a Young Life Can Teach You
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
~Helen Keller
My husband and I were living the American Dream. We had two beautiful children, nice cars, great jobs and a big house with a pool, until one day four and half years ago, that all changed.
When our third child Bowen was born, we didn’t know he had a fatal kidney disease. Bowen went to Heaven after living thirteen days.
After Bowen died, we tried to go on living our lives the way we had been. We thought building a house would help us “start over” without him. It didn’t take long to discover, life without Bowen was going to be hard and a new house was not going to change that.
Most days were spent cleaning and taking care of all the stuff that went inside our new house. The more time I spent cleaning, the more I realized how much time it took away from what I really wanted in the first place, which was to be with my family and spend time with them. The more stuff that came into our lives the less time we had with each other.
After a year in our new house, my husband and I started having serious conversations about the purpose of our lives. Was making lots of money, owning a big house and all of these things what our lives were all about? Something was missing; there was more to life than taking care of that big house and maintaining all of our stuff.
At the time my husband was in a thriving oral surgery practice, at the peak of his career. Running his practice became more like running a rat race, keeping up with the competition, keeping the overhead low and the production numbers up. It was like running on a treadmill with no stop button. He desired to have more meaning and purpose in his career — to do something that was bigger than himself.
One January day in 2014, he came home and said, “I want to walk away from all of this and join the United States Air Force. What do you think?”
I said, “Yes! Let’s do it!” On September 21, 2014 my husband became Major John M. Gillis of the United States Air Force. He would still practice as an oral surgeon in the Air Force, but be serving men and women who serve our country, serving something that was bigger than him, not running the treadmill of life. It took a lot of courage to walk away from a thriving nine-year oral surgery practice, and I am proud of him for doing so.
Life is focused now on what we are putting into our hearts and not what we are putting into our closets.
To the world, it didn’t make sense that we walked away from a lucrative practice and the American dream. But some things in life cannot be bought. Walking away allowed a door to be opened for so much more. We were able to fill our lives with what mattered most, to live a life that was truly rich.
The day my husband was commissioned into the Air Force, we received our orders. We were moving from Arizona to Alaska. Right when my husband told me the news, a beer delivery truck wrapped in an Alaskan Amber ad passed right in front of me. It was like God had sent me a confirmation that our life was heading in the right direction.
Things fell into place quickly after that. We put our newly built house on the market and it sold in four days. We moved to a house half its size on the military base, so we donated fifty percent of our clothes and shoes to Goodwill, and gave away half of our children’s toys and some furniture.
Our lives are so different now. We traded our travertine floors and granite countertops for a military house with white walls. Our children gave up their own rooms and bathrooms to now share a room and a bathroom. I sold my luxury vehicle to buy a Subaru, which I love! We traded in our resort vacations for camping trips in an RV. Trading in all of these things was the best decision we ever made. It helped us get back to our roots and become a tighter knit family.
We make less money, live in a much smaller house, and have a lot less stuff, but we are so much happier. Our lives are not focused on taking care of the house, making more money and acquiring more stuff, but building lasting relationships and making more memories. Life is focused now on what we are putting into our hearts and not what we are putting into our closets.
Losing our son was devastating, but his death taught us to cherish and treasure every moment that life has to offer and to live life with more intention. Bowen showed us what was really in our hearts and gave us the courage to move forward after his death with more clarity and purpose.
~Heather Gillis
My Kitchen in a Trunk
If you look at your entire house as one unit of junk, you’ll never do anything because the job is too overwhelming. Take it one drawer at a time.
~Janet Luhrs
Kitchen remodels are not easy or fun, but sometimes they yield the most surprising benefits. Besides putting in a new countertop and sink, we were having our cabinets refaced, so I emptied all the drawers and cabinets.
By the time I was done, I was surrounded by boxes filled
with dishes, glassware, gadgets and utensils. I had no idea where many of the things even came from, or what they were supposed to be used for. My kitchen had become quite the storage space.
I did what most sane people do at that point. I took a break and watched some television — not just any television, but one of the channels that dealt with home and garden issues. Episode after episode was filled with ideas for meals to prepare, renovations to complete and gardens to transform. When you are in the middle of renovations, I don’t recommend watching others handling it better than yourself!
In the midst of these shows was nestled a little gem of an idea. The host talked about our obsession with utensils. Her advice was to eliminate all but the seven basic utensils that really are needed for cooking the majority of our meals: a slotted spoon, regular stirring spoon, spatula, tongs, measuring spoons, measuring cups, and peeler. The idea made me sit up straight and bring out the boxes of assorted utensils I owned. I dug out the seven items and set them aside. I was overwhelmed by what was still in the box. Each item had a specific purpose, but how often did I really use them, and could I accomplish the task with one of the seven instead?
I closed up the boxes of utensils and put them in the trunk of my car. I was about to conduct an experiment — one that would keep these utensils and kitchen tools close enough to retrieve, but also far enough away to make me think twice about reaching for them.
As I fit my seven surviving “essential” utensils into just one of my beautiful new kitchen drawers, I instantly felt lighter and freer. With that big step under my belt, I took the opportunity to lighten a lot of my other cabinets and drawers. Using the same thought process, I simply “put back” what I used on a regular basis, and left the rest in the boxes. Then I added the boxes to my trunk, which was now very full.