Part#3: The Big and Costly Learning Experiences

In Part:2, I left off feeling hopeless and overwhelmed and making a muck of my finances. So you know what will cure that? A wedding and building a house of course! Instead of trying to strategize a way out of debt, I put myself further into it, under the illusion of needing to ‘be an adult’ by marrying someone who also had their head in the sand financially and buying a house together. Totally the right call… Nope! The debt from those two decisions made everything so, so much worse. Add on top of that my car kicked the bucket and that super awesome best friend canine of mine was getting old and expensive. Talk about a sinking ship that is nearly at the bottom of the sea.

Hey, I’m not pretending I was super great at money from day#1, I got super great at money by making oh so many of the mistakes myself.

So how did this stage shake down? By me finally hitting rock bottom. The divorce was underway and I was getting out of home ownership. The good news was that I landed a job with one of the banks and was now working full time and learning so much about how to manage money. I am forever thankful for that opportunity! I was also still teaching piano and working at the university, so it was a very busy time in my life. Too busy frankly. Again being left with even more bills than ever (divorce is expensive), I sucked up a lot of pride and moved into an apartment with 2 roommates. Yup, that was a huge blow coming from someone who was trying so hard to appear to be winning at adulting. That move ended up being the best thing I ever did. As much as my ego took a hit, my finances were forever grateful. Not only could I now afford my living costs, I was able to legitimately focus on massive debt repayment strategies, which finally started snowballing in the right direction! How old was I when I finally hit rock bottom, took the ego hit and started getting financially in shape? Almost 30.

Sometimes we have to make the mistakes for ourselves, no one can tell you otherwise and you know what? That’s OK. I’m sharing all of this to break down the barriers of shame around money and that sense of hopelessness and perhaps feeling like you’re the only one suffering while watching all the great things people seem to be doing and affording through social media.