Breaking Point

          I would love to tell you that I had just one moment, a single turning point, or final straw, but I had several. I can remember coming home only a few months into living in the rental house, and getting the mail where I found a gas bill for $250. It’s important that I mention that our gas bills had been around $20 per month up to this point. This gas bill gave me that sinking feeling with only about $40 in my checking account and no money coming till Friday. We both knew that even after getting paid that coming Friday we wouldn’t have enough left to cover it. This moment did have a lesson in it; the gas company has a “budget” plan that was recommended by the nice lady on the phone. It’s funny, but I remember this was one of my first encounters with this word. This is when the gas company estimates your annual gas usage cost and divides it up evenly on a monthly basis. This obviously makes the cost much more predictable and manageable. This “budget plan” is a principle that we will revisit later because we can apply it to so many other areas financially.
          There was another moment when I can really remember feeling like I wasn’t doing things right. My wife’s car at the time had its transmission go out. This was a big deal and it was time sensitive for her getting to work. Fortunately, it was still drivable and we were able to take it to the shop. Now the bad news, it needed to be rebuilt and was going to cost us around $2,000 that we didn’t have. Most guys are going to relate to this, my parents couldn’t lend us the money, credit cards were not an option, however; her dad could lend us the money. Yeah, I borrowed money from my father in law. I didn’t feel like I was doing a great job at supporting my family. I had a wife to take care of, and a child to set an example for.
          We were living in our rental house and in my little world I thought we had two car payments and my motorcycle payment… so maybe 7, or $8,000 in debt? I was slightly wrong, I missed the mark by about $20,000.00 of debt. Yeah, so right around $28,000 of total consumer debt, we were renting so we didn’t have a mortgage at this time. I don’t want to focus on the amounts as if it's a contest on who has more debt, or "if you think that's bad, you should see my debt". I want us to instead focus on the mentality and the principles because they transcend individual circumstances. I was doing what everyone else was doing, but it wasn’t working for me.

          The difference between our financial situation in my world vs. the actual reality was staggering. I was very comfortable going day to day with the way I thought our finances were, but when we started, this is what they looked like in comparison. 

          The one on the left is why I was feeling so good, and the right one... well, we needed help.. and soon.

          This was not an easy thing to accept at the moment, but I needed to remember that at least now the work can begin. I want to encourage you (and your partner) to dismiss blame during this process, it's irrelevant because the damage is done. Remain solution focused and let's get down to business!