When I started my debt elimination tour in 2015, I was trying to find someone online who I could relate to and by complete accident stumbled upon blogger, Anna Newell Jones of And Then We Saved. She used her blog to document her getting out of debt journey using a "spending fast" for 15 months which allowed her to pay off $20,000 dollars of debt on a courthouse clerk's salary of less than $40,000 dollars per year. Her journey was so relatable for me because at the time I was making $11.00 per hour as a teacher assistant (semi part time working 30 hours per week) and was in roughly $5,000 dollars in credit card debt, not to mention student loan debt over $40,000 dollars (yikes!).
To breakdown what a spending fast is, it consists of zero spending on discretionary expenses, i.e. not the essentials like housing and utilities, for a designated period of time.
For me at the time (2015) this sounded like the answer I needed because I was attending graduate school and raising my family, so not working another job and paying off debt sounded ideal. I wish I could say I gave it a good, ol' try but I did not. About one month into reading her blog (10x over) and feeling more confident about implementing into my own finances, I talked to my partner about the idea and received less than joy in response. "So you will paying for nothing?" resembles my partner's response. It sounds like I quitted on an idea before even starting and that would not be an incorrect observation. While I deep dived on the blog, I also read about Anna's difficulty getting her partner on board and I was prepared for my partner's reaction but those words of paying for nothing felt like I was being reliant on someone else to pay for fun activities because I was not going to. And yes, I did bring to the table fun and affordable (if not FREE) activities to offset not paying for other activities but this was not part of my partner's imagined lifestyle with his family. So with those words in my mind and my own determination (a little lackluster at this point), I set out to use the spending fast as my answer to get out of debt. I lasted for 3 days, tops, and felt so restricted with the little money I already had. Remember I was making $11 dollars at 30 hours per week here. Scarcity was my foe in achieving my financial goals because it creates a mindset of "lack" and instead of the narrative being "I am saving money to reach my goals," it sounded more like "I have no money to do what I want. This sucks!" I am not discouraging anyone from completing spending fasts and I "might" attempt to complete it again in the future but it was just not for me at the time (2015) since I could barely cover my fixed expenses and pay extra on my credit card debts. But I will share the key takeaways I got from discovering Spending Fasts through the And Then We Saved blog.
Takeaway #1 : Pay More on the Minimum Payment
I know this is not a hot take but I was definitely not doing it nor doing myself any favors delaying making the higher payments. I learned that if I was really going to tackle debt I had to start making incremental changes. I barely had money to cover my monthly expenses but I had to try to increase one credit card's monthly payment higher than the minimum payment. That trick alone was shortening my debt repayment because I was paying the interest along with the debt when I increased my minimum payment from $50 to $75 in 2015.
Takeaway #2: Make a Miscellaneous Category
I learned to set aside money ($20 dollars) per paycheck for miscellaneous stuff that seemed to pop up in between paychecks. So for those who swear by budgets, I understand a "proper" budget would help eliminate things that seem to just pop up but I was not and I am still not a perfect budgeter. This lesson helped me realize I need to set aside money to buffer against feeling like some random expense took away my last $20 dollars before payday. I understand $20 does not seem like a lot of money for miscellaneous expenses but it helped me buffer an unexpected cost (I'm looking at you office birthdays, children's fundraisers, and the like). Creating and funding this category, helped me be more proactive about my finances and staying on track with my debt payoff.
Again, these were my takeaways when I started my debt elimination tour in 2015 that were and still are helpful for managing money and paying off debt.
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