These days it’s normal to have debt. Everyone has a car payment. Everyone has a credit card. A mortgage payment, if it’s not yours, it’s your landlords. There’s a pandemic of student loans.

Why is it normal to have debt, but weird to pay for things in cash? Why do we worship the almighty credit score? Because that’s what we were taught. It’s the only thing we’ve ever known as millennials.

Most of us remember what is known as the Great Recession of 2008-2009. I know I do. At the time I was in high school. My parents, who were making six figures, had to file for bankruptcy. I know my parents were devastated with how it all happened. We had to move right after I graduated in 2010, to a house that wasn’t big enough for all of us. I slept on the couch for 2 weeks until I moved to Kansas.

These were the examples we saw when we were growing up. We were taught that we needed a good credit score to get good jobs or to be successful in life. But in order to get that credit score, we had to go into debt. We were taught to get a credit card young, but to use it wisely. How many 18-24 year olds are going to use a credit card responsibly? Now many of us are suffering the consequences with minimum payments that barely match the monthly interest. All while working jobs that can hardly sustain a normal adult with normal bills.

Last September after we moved, I signed up for a debt relief program. All my credit cards were behind already, my credit score was a 405. What else could I do? I stopped answering my phone, chances were it was a collector. I felt like I was drowning. At a rate of 25%, I agreed to let a company settle my cards. I signed up for a payment plan of $336 per month for 4 years! That was more than my car payment, but I didn’t have to deal with my credit cards anymore.

Thank goodness I couldn’t get another credit card. I now realize that signing up for that program didn’t help and I could have settled those accounts myself and saved over $4000 that I was paying in fees.

This is the biggest debt in my debt snowball. I started with over $20,000 in credit card debt. I racked all that up in only about 4 years. All while living in Colorado. I lived off my credit cards because we couldn’t afford our lifestyle.

It will take a lot of hard work to get this one paid off. It’s a stretch to try and get it done by the end of 2019, but I have hope!