Going through bankruptcy, I hadn’t really changed a thing. At least my debt was covered, I couldn’t get any additional, and if I could just live within my means, I’d make it through the next 5 years intact.
It was a struggle. Despite a high income, I had a very high payment for the trustee, a high mortgage, and a lot of financial fat. I relied on my annual bonus to make it through the year. Rarely did I make it all the way.
Knowing that I’d have to wait on paying the oil bill until that came every year was painful. Waiting for this cycle to end was agony.
I still had one year left when I missed my first trustee payment and the mortgage payment was causing an overdraft because “the bank” didn’t time it properly, damn it.
It was the end of 2020 and I knew that I had to start getting my finances organized if I was going to make it the home stretch. I was determined to be financially sound and out of bankruptcy this year.
When you’re paycheck to paycheck and you get paid every 2 weeks, it can be a real challenge to figure out which check pays for what. I started out by logging all of my expenses and trying to map them to paydays.
Using TrueBill, Mint, and Personal Capital I was able to categorize my transactions, setup budgets, and monitor recurring expenses.
Watching my cash flow and starting to see a light at the end of the budget tunnel gave me the confidence to continue. After being able to cut some expenses, reduce a few others, things started to snowball.
I’ve always been an avid reader, but strictly Fantasy Fiction until now. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Automatic Millionaire, and The Cash Machine: A Tale of Passion, Persistence, and Financial Independence opened my eyes to what was possible once your finances were in order.
These were the “secrets” I’ve always been looking for! The tricks to how other people got ahead. I was paying too much in taxes. I was not looking for ways to save. I had liabilities that could be turned into assets.
I’ve looked for support and places to help during and after bankruptcy, but they are mainly people looking for help through the technical and legal process. There isn’t much in the way of financial advice to avoid the situation or get out of it entirely, except for consolidation loans and bankruptcy lawyers.
Discovering the FI / FIRE community added something that wasn’t there when I went through my bankruptcy. A crowd-sourced blueprint to saving money, investing safely and consistently, and getting ahead to get out of the rat race.
FIRE matched my goals of saving aggressively post-bankruptcy, but the podcasts and community around FI have shown me how lacking education in financial literacy is in this country.
If more people knew about optimizing their taxes, increasing their savings, and their investments, and understood how to use their credit properly, they wouldn’t have to struggle through debt, shame, and stress alone.