The US economy was heading into a recession and few companies were hiring. One month of job searching turned into two. Then three. Then four. I started to become depressed, but I didn’t fully realize it at the time.
As the months passed, my credit card purchases continued. Looking back, the “high” of buying things started to wear off faster and faster. This meant I was buying things more often.
I was showing other classic signs of bad credit card debt too. I was avoiding getting the mail. When my credit card bill would come, I wouldn’t open it for a few days. Eventually, I came to a breaking point.
I knew I had to get my debt under control. I knew that finance charges were a bad thing, so I found a credit card with a 0% interest rate on balance transfers for one year. I somehow was approved.
What ended up happening was that I kept spending. I put my new spending on my old card that now had a zero balance. Before I knew it, I had two credit cards with balances.
Within a short period of time, my total debt now stood at $10,000. I wasn’t even thinking about trying to save money on interest charges at this point. I was just spending to get my “high”.
I finally admitted to myself that I was depressed. The fact that I went to college and couldn’t find a job was destroying my self-worth. I knew that buying things wasn’t the solution.
I continued to look for work but was still failing short. So I took another approach. I took a part time job at an electronics store. It made me feel good to have a job. I curbed my spending and slowly started to pay off all my debt.
While I worked part time, I continued to work on myself as well as find a more permanent job. Eventually, I landed a full time job. It was temporary during tax season, but it was with a well known mutual fund company.
I worked at this job during the day and kept my part time job at the electronics store, working nights and weekends. After 5 months, I made a nice dent in my credit card debt.