Like the title says, no one falls into a lot of debt overnight. Generally it slowly built up until there came a point where you couldn't juggle everything and ended falling into the trap of debt. So what happen? How did it come about? Maybe knowing how others ended up in debt will help folks avoid the pitfalls themselves.
In my case it was having too many clothing accounts. As most women I love clothes so when I started working I thought I was in 7th heaven when all these clothing stores were practically begging me to open accounts in their shops - how could I resist? Eventually I had about seven clothing accounts while only receiving a small paycheck every month. One month I would pay several of these accounts while skipping the others. The next month I would pay those I didn't get around to paying the previous month, and so it went on. On top of that, every month I had to borrow money from my parents because I was always broke. My parents were always puzzled about where my money went to but I was too embarrassed to tell them about my accounts as they only believed in paying cash for everything. Every year when I received my bonus I would pay off all my accounts but lo and behold, when January came along the cycle would begin all over again! When I got married my husband soon sorted my little weakness out. Now I have only two accounts which I make sure that I am capable of handling in a responsible way.
Well, I was pretty much on top of my money situation but I got ill after a trip overseas, a 'friend' (frenemy) never paid me money owing to me and a few other emergencies popped up and landed me in some trouble. So, during the period of getting better and not earning...ouch, hurt me but I am wiser with money now. So, it is all good once again...and plan on keeping it that way!
The tipping point for my family was when my husband lost his income. When this happened we lost about 3grand a month. So that was when we started drowning in debt and are still fighting out way out of it.
The tipping point for me was when I realized almost $1000 more was going out each month than we made. We had a great savings when we got married, over $10,000. It was gone 2 years into our marriage because we were living above our means. Even after that revelation, it took us awhile to get everything under control. It was not something we cleaned up over night. It was probably 3 years of hard work. There were a lot of times I wanted to quite, but I'm glad we pushed through. I learned a lot, but won't be repeating it.
I just got to the stage where I was living up to my credit limits, rather than just using the cards in emergencies. Now if I can't pay for it with cash or from my debit card account, I do without. I pay off as much as I can afford on the balances each month, and another two years should see me debt free. I certainly won't fall into the credit card trap again. I've cut up the cards, and just have one for emergencies - that's real emergencies, not the cat's birthday.
