Live Your Life For Half The Price: Without Sacrificing the Life You Love
By MARY HUNT
Continued From Page 1
Chapter One
The Life You Love
I was asked to interview sixty millionaires from Oklahoma. What I learned from them was simple, yet the message had a lasting impact on me: You cannot enjoy life if you are addicted to consumption and the use of credit. ~ Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. in The Millionaire Next Door
Shortly after graduating from college I married the love of my life. We had no debt but we had new sheets and towels. Life was wonderful. In fact, my life had never been this good. I was finally done with school, I loved my job, and my new husband adored me.
Had you knocked on the front door of our tiny home (three hundred square feet, no kidding) and asked me to rate the quality of my life, I would have given it the highest possible marks and without hesitation.
Chapter One
The Life You Love
I was asked to interview sixty millionaires from Oklahoma. What I learned from them was simple, yet the message had a lasting impact on me: You cannot enjoy life if you are addicted to consumption and the use of credit. ~ Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. in The Millionaire Next Door
Shortly after graduating from college I married the love of my life. We had no debt but we had new sheets and towels. Life was wonderful. In fact, my life had never been this good. I was finally done with school, I loved my job, and my new husband adored me.
Had you knocked on the front door of our tiny home (three hundred square feet, no kidding) and asked me to rate the quality of my life, I would have given it the highest possible marks and without hesitation.
The Card
I got my first credit card for convenience, pure and simple. Harold, my conservative banker husband, did not share my enthusiasm but finally agreed. I didn’t see this as a way to build our credit history or spend money we didn’t have; I thought it would be more convenient to use this Texaco card and pay the bill once a month rather than scramble for money every few days to put gas in my car. I would save time too.
The minute my new card came in the mail I took it for a test-drive. For fun, I pulled up to a full-service pump (back when they had those) just as proud as I could be. I felt like royalty because within seconds several attendants addressed my every automotive need.
My quality of life took a bounce. For a moment I felt a sense of privilege I’d never known. It felt good. And with this magic card I didn’t have to worry about a thing, because my husband would take care of the bill.
You don’t think the Queen of England actually pays her bills, do you? Of course not, and why should I? Privilege. Entitlement. Quality of life. As long ago as this was, I remember the incident as if it happened this morning, right down to what I was wearing. I guess you might say this was one of my life’s “defining moments.”
Blinded by flawed thinking that suggests if one is good, two must be better, I added several more credit cards to my collection. My quality of life began to improve in other areas, little by little. I couldn’t believe all the quality I’d been missing.
Having the freedom to buy stuff whenever I wanted was a big deal to me. I’d grown up with very little. Now, for the first time in my life, I could act on my compulsive urges. No waiting; just make a snap decision and move on.
We got a new car. We had a baby. Make that two. The best toys. More Legos. Star Wars action figures, video games, cool clothes, hobbies, vacations, more new cars. More new clothes, new swimming pool. Ah, quality of life, standard of living.
Our family vacations and big Christmases added even more to my quality of life. We enrolled the kids in private schools. They participated in sports and other enrichment programs. We even bought a recreational vehicle to improve the quality of our lives. It worked for a while.
We crossed a significant threshold the month we were unable to pay the credit card bills in full. Enter consumer debt.
Debt Turns Ugly
Let me tell you about high-interest, unsecured, revolving credit-card debt. It’s like cancer. It begins as a single cell, and you don’t even feel it. Opting to pay the minimum payment rather than the full balance was effortless, painless…no noticeable negative effect at all.
It was easier to pay $40 than $400. Breathing space, relieved pressure. It was like a gift—as if we were getting away with something.
At that point I would have told you—and meant it with all my heart—that consumer debt improved our lives. It allowed us to do more things and get more stuff. It was like getting a big raise even though our income had not increased.
But like a single cancer cell that begins to multiply, so did our debt. It grew and multiplied until it nearly killed us. We missed payments, incurred late fees, and had to borrow more and more to handle our ever-growing minimum payments.
The very thing that had “improved” our quality of life began to eat away at it instead.
By the time we celebrated twelve years of marriage, we were in our third home, our two bundles of baby boy joy were six and seven, and we were driving two fancy new cars. We changed careers and also tried self-employment.
If I could stop here you might assume that our quality of life had improved even more remarkably. But lest you jump to that conclusion, let me also tell you that we had amassed more than $100,000 in unsecured (mostly credit-card) debt. Things were way out of hand.
We were horribly in debt and our business had failed; we were unemployed, months behind on our bills, and facing foreclosure on our home. We had no savings, no retirement accounts to cash in, and no rich uncles in the family tree. Let me assure you, there was little quality in our lives.
True Quality
I longed for the simple life in our cozy 300 hundred-square-foot home when we got regular paychecks, paid our bills on time, paid cash for our day-to-day living, and—on top of that—had money in the bank. We were so happy. Our quality of life was authentic. That was the life I loved.
I loathed the trap that now held us so tightly. I discovered too late that having it all now and paying for it later was a hollow promise—a torturous trap. The availability of credit that promised the freedom to have and do anything I wanted now held us in bondage.
I didn’t set out to ruin our lives. I didn’t sit down one day and dream up a foolproof plan to plunge me and my family into the kind of financial distress from which few recover. I thought I was making our lives better. I was driven by this thing we call “quality of life.”
I got my first credit card for convenience, pure and simple. Harold, my conservative banker husband, did not share my enthusiasm but finally agreed. I didn’t see this as a way to build our credit history or spend money we didn’t have; I thought it would be more convenient to use this Texaco card and pay the bill once a month rather than scramble for money every few days to put gas in my car. I would save time too.
The minute my new card came in the mail I took it for a test-drive. For fun, I pulled up to a full-service pump (back when they had those) just as proud as I could be. I felt like royalty because within seconds several attendants addressed my every automotive need.
My quality of life took a bounce. For a moment I felt a sense of privilege I’d never known. It felt good. And with this magic card I didn’t have to worry about a thing, because my husband would take care of the bill.
You don’t think the Queen of England actually pays her bills, do you? Of course not, and why should I? Privilege. Entitlement. Quality of life. As long ago as this was, I remember the incident as if it happened this morning, right down to what I was wearing. I guess you might say this was one of my life’s “defining moments.”
Blinded by flawed thinking that suggests if one is good, two must be better, I added several more credit cards to my collection. My quality of life began to improve in other areas, little by little. I couldn’t believe all the quality I’d been missing.
Having the freedom to buy stuff whenever I wanted was a big deal to me. I’d grown up with very little. Now, for the first time in my life, I could act on my compulsive urges. No waiting; just make a snap decision and move on.
We got a new car. We had a baby. Make that two. The best toys. More Legos. Star Wars action figures, video games, cool clothes, hobbies, vacations, more new cars. More new clothes, new swimming pool. Ah, quality of life, standard of living.
Our family vacations and big Christmases added even more to my quality of life. We enrolled the kids in private schools. They participated in sports and other enrichment programs. We even bought a recreational vehicle to improve the quality of our lives. It worked for a while.
We crossed a significant threshold the month we were unable to pay the credit card bills in full. Enter consumer debt.
Debt Turns Ugly
Let me tell you about high-interest, unsecured, revolving credit-card debt. It’s like cancer. It begins as a single cell, and you don’t even feel it. Opting to pay the minimum payment rather than the full balance was effortless, painless…no noticeable negative effect at all.
It was easier to pay $40 than $400. Breathing space, relieved pressure. It was like a gift—as if we were getting away with something.
At that point I would have told you—and meant it with all my heart—that consumer debt improved our lives. It allowed us to do more things and get more stuff. It was like getting a big raise even though our income had not increased.
But like a single cancer cell that begins to multiply, so did our debt. It grew and multiplied until it nearly killed us. We missed payments, incurred late fees, and had to borrow more and more to handle our ever-growing minimum payments.
The very thing that had “improved” our quality of life began to eat away at it instead.
By the time we celebrated twelve years of marriage, we were in our third home, our two bundles of baby boy joy were six and seven, and we were driving two fancy new cars. We changed careers and also tried self-employment.
If I could stop here you might assume that our quality of life had improved even more remarkably. But lest you jump to that conclusion, let me also tell you that we had amassed more than $100,000 in unsecured (mostly credit-card) debt. Things were way out of hand.
We were horribly in debt and our business had failed; we were unemployed, months behind on our bills, and facing foreclosure on our home. We had no savings, no retirement accounts to cash in, and no rich uncles in the family tree. Let me assure you, there was little quality in our lives.
True Quality
I longed for the simple life in our cozy 300 hundred-square-foot home when we got regular paychecks, paid our bills on time, paid cash for our day-to-day living, and—on top of that—had money in the bank. We were so happy. Our quality of life was authentic. That was the life I loved.
I loathed the trap that now held us so tightly. I discovered too late that having it all now and paying for it later was a hollow promise—a torturous trap. The availability of credit that promised the freedom to have and do anything I wanted now held us in bondage.
I didn’t set out to ruin our lives. I didn’t sit down one day and dream up a foolproof plan to plunge me and my family into the kind of financial distress from which few recover. I thought I was making our lives better. I was driven by this thing we call “quality of life.”
