I remember my FIRST credit card.  I was in my first year of university, walking through the student centre and offered the deal of a lifetime (haha) for that first BMO Mastercard. I must have got some free perk with it -  I couldn’t tell you what it was – but what I can tell you is that it was the most exciting and seemingly “grown up” thing I’d could have done.  I had CREDIT! A whole $1000 and I was on my way to take on the world.   

That $1000 credit limit grew to over $10,000 by the time I’d graduated and for the most part, I gotta say, I managed it well! I didn’t go crazy, I paid my balance, I was a good credit kid (and paving the way for my future life as a money guru). 

Then I got engaged. Now I don’t mean for that to sound ominous; it is actually a wonderful thing.  I was ecstatic and we were hell-bent on paying for most things ourselves. And we did…with the help of that good old BMO Mastercard. 

We had a crazy fun wedding and were rewarded with lots of earned airmiles and a maxed-out credit card.  It was too much.  I was no longer the good-credit kid that paid her balance each month…I was the stressed-out chick making minimum payments and watching the interest grow my credit card balance faster than I could pay it off. 

Sound familiar? 

So being the good little super nerd that I am, I decided I need a plan: payoff 10K on my credit card ASAP. 

Now I don’t remember the details of our finances at the time but if you read last week’s blog, you’ll get the general gist of what I did to get out of that hole. 

What that blog doesn’t talk about is the 3M’s I needed to actually make it all happen. 

MINDSET 

“M” number one is about my mindset.  If I were to ask you today to try to find $1500 in your budget (business or personal) to pay off (or towards) a bill, many of us might have a bit of a panic attack. Coming up with the money you don’t (think) you have is daunting. 

The first thing I needed to do was learn to treat this bill as not a “pay what you can” type thing, but rather as a set payment required every month (or every week, depending on how you want to break it down).  I created a line in my budget (of course I had a budget…I might have been in debt, but I was still as super dork) that was a set amount that I needed to pay each month.  This wasn’t optional, and I treated it just like I did my phone, internet, or utilities bill. 

Now this was 20+ years ago, so if it were today, I would have set up an autopayment for this so I couldn’t even make a conscious decision as to whether I’d pay it or not.  It would have been just like my mortgage or property taxes – it would just magically come out of my account.  But alas…20 years ago wasn’t so high-tech ;) I had to do things manually. 

MOTIVATION 

“M” number two of the secret to my debt payment success as motivation.  Remember how I had to manually send those payments each month?  Yeah, that took a lot to ACTUALLY send that money.  Mastercard wasn’t really wanting me to pay it off (20% interest is gravy to them!), so I could have easily just pushed it off to the next month…and then the next month…No one was holding a gun to my head, or knocking down our door, so what made me make that payment each month?   

I had to find my inner motivation.  Everyone’s will be different but mine (in this case) was three-fold: 

1. I hated paying so much interest each month – it was a waste of money and for such a thrifty gal this went against everything in my being;  

2. We had just bought a house, and needed furniture for said house…and a lawn, and a fence…I needed this debt out of my life so we could spend money on more important things; and 

3. I got pregnant…oh DAMN!  Yep I needed to clear this baggage before this new money-sucker entered the world (hahaha) 

You need to find your own “why” cause otherwise procrastination will rule the day. 

MOJO 

The last “M” to getting my debt repaid was my special mojo, superpower, and secret sauce: I’m a fun-vampire and these were my glory-days!  What’s a “fun-vampire” you ask?  Well, this name was lovingly bestowed on me by my husband cause all I would say during those “debt-days” was “no” we can’t.  “No” we can’t go to that show; “no” we can’t go out for dinner; “no” we can’t go on that trip.  I was a total Debbie-Downer, Party-Pooper, and all-round Fun-Vampire…makes sense now, right?    

But a year of “no’s” resulted in a paid-off credit card!! Sometimes you’ve got to be the bad guy to get things back on track. 

There you go. My 3M’s for getting out of debt.  And don’t think this is easy, or it’s a one-and-done.  Fast forward 6 months after the credit card got paid off and baby #1 is born…and the reality of maternity leave sets in…. 

Let’s just say I spend SEVERAL years being called a fun vampire ;) 

P.S. Need help getting your 3M’s in place? Join our FREE CEBA Payback Challenge to help save 40K by Dec 31, 2023!