Oops!

It's my fault - mostly. Not that I was the one spending all this invisible money alone, no, just that I didn't ever make our situation clear to my husband. I pay the bills. I log in to our online banking to see what's what. Sure, I'd buy clothes, go out for happy hour or lunch every now and then, as would he and it didn't seem like we were spending that much. But sometimes I'd check our bank account balance and oops! Not enough money for groceries. So I'd use the card. (And I can be quite the grocery shopper!)

Well it piled up over the years until one day I realized our debt was ridiculous. Actually, Citibank in all their evil credit card-y ways opened my eyes, so I guess, maybe, I should thank them. In early October they sent me a letter - one of those we're-changing-your-terms,-decline-now-or-we-own-your-soul-forever letters. They were raising my interest rate from a ho-hum 14.99% to a whopping 29.99%! If I'd had a lower balance, maybe I'd have ignored it, after all, I'd had my Citicard for nearly 10 years making it one of my oldest forms of credit. Unfortunately, the balance on that card thanks to several transfers was over $19,000. The minimum payments with an interest rate near 30% would be impossible for me to pay.

Meanwhile my husband ranted and raved about how we needed to pay off our debt. "Is it going down?" he'd ask. "How much do we owe now?" I'd push him off, saying I didn't know exactly, or it'd take some time to find all the current bills and add it all up, but I knew. I had a general idea and that was precisely why I didn't want to tell him. I was afraid of what he'd say.

One night, though, as talk turned to money and then to yelling and tears, it came out. In a ridiculously round about way I admitted that we now owed over $50,000. And that, thankfully, has led to change. It's slow going for sure, and the journey will be a long one, but we're making changes and putting plans into place. I'll keep you updated - as I hope this can be a lesson to anyone out there who lets the plastic flow a little too easily.