It's Been a While.

As they say, the more things change ...

First the awful truth: I currently owe $10,711 in credit card debt. How could this be? What happened? Well, for one thing, I refinanced my condo a few months back. You remember that. (And if not, just scroll down ...) Doing so wiped out a lot of my savings, since I had to pay closing costs. Then came some repairs, including a new A/C unit for one of the bedrooms. I then saw that many of the water lines needed to have some repair work. As they were, in an emergency I wouldn't be able to turn the water off. So I replaced all the valves in each bathroom and under the kitchen sink. And then I had to replace the vanities in the bathroom since some moron had installed some that ran the length of the wall over the bathroom toilet. Basically, if there was a toilet emergency, you wouldn't have been able to get into the tank. And then there were the new toilets.

To fix all these things? Credit cards. Sigh. At the height, I owed almost $17,000. I am still in awe that I got back to that point after all my hard work at getting to zero. Oh well. No use in crying over it.

Now for the good: I have almost $15,000 saved, with the goal of $20,000 by year-end. I could pay off the debt, sure, but I need the cushion. I hate having that debt over my head, but it's reassuring to know that I can pay it off.

Weirdly enough, I seemed to get into more debt after I hired that financial planner. His high fees did not help, either. There was really no reason for me to have continued using him after that initial visit. I don't have the kind of complicated financial picture that warranted his services, and I'm still more than a little annoyed that (1) I wasn't firmer during my initial reluctance to renew, and (2) that he was so aggressive in getting me to renew. I fee like if I had told him about some other financial planner charging me what he himself was charging, he would have advised that I run for the hills. (Complicating things is that he's a friend, and also very good friends with some other friends.)

Anyway, I'm back on track and it feels good. Adding to all the good feelings is the state of my personal life: I got married last year! He is beyond wonderful -- beyond anything I could've dreamed up for myself. I'm renting out my condo and living with him (duh) in a lovely town house in a neighborhood that I feel like an impostor in. How I have received such good fortune is beyond me, and I'm so thankful and happy that my cheeks hurt from smiling all the time.

It feels weird to be back here confessing my financial sins, but also liberating too. That is, I've been here before and I know what it takes to get it done.

See you next month!