Losing It, Drop By Sweaty Drop
– By Priya Jestin
I was taking stock of my finances the other day – yes I do it sometimes. Well and what do I see? I was spending around 10 percent more than my salary on a monthly basis. Now, 10 percent didn’t seem too much so I brushed it aside. Big mistake screamed my friends. They warned me that I was taking the shortest route to bankruptcy!
I thought they were being a bit too dramatic until I decided to prove to them that I could curtail my expenses if I wanted to. And that’s when I discovered something: cutting down on my expenses was proving to be next to impossible. Something like my weight loss program. I’ve tried for years to lose weight, but all I do is lose some, and gain some more back on. I learnt that credit is just like weight – gaining it is a cakewalk and losing it is a sweaty business!
But I am not chicken and I wanted to prove that I could, if I wanted, do something. So I took the drastic step of grounding my credit card. I locked it away and gave my mom the keys to the drawer. Yes, it was very difficult. But so is weight loss. And once you are on track, it surely feels great…you can wear all those great dresses you’d locked away. So also with your finances – when you are in control, you can splurge every now and then. Believe this: Every dollar makes a difference!
loseitfast
November 13th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
It took me 14 months to get debt free (I often ate peanuts for lunch, killed my gym membership, the whole kanoodle I kid you not). But I often wonder… if the U.S. $ collapses in say 15 years from now… so would the value of my debt (poor creditors!)…
should I have sweated it out until the collapse?