The Breakup

Happy Friday everyone! I have another absolutely inspiring dear debt letter from one of my favorite bloggers, Sandy from Yes, I am Cheap. I had the chance to meet her at FinCon and she is so lovely! So happy she is on the blog today, declaring her independence and fighting back. Get ready and get inspired. This is a good one.

First, a little background: Sandy calls herself the guinea pig of debt reduction strategies.  She’s determined to prove that you can repay a six figure debt on a regular salary by sharing her own debt reduction strategies.  She writes at Yes I Am Cheap where she’s just shared how she repaid $50,000 in less than two years after being unemployed for six months and working as a temp for nine months.

Dear Debt,

I’m leaving you.  It’s not you, it’s me…no, no, that’s a lie.  We’ve both changed and it’s just not working anymore.  I’d like to say that it’s been fun, but no, it’s been pretty dang painful. I’m not sad to see you go either.

It wasn’t like I wasted money on some stupid shopping sprees or even that I was an irresponsible spender to end up with you as a life partner.  I went to school and earned a few degrees like good kids were supposed to do, but I hadn’t counted on student loans coming along for the ride for so long. I hadn’t planned on my business drying up leaving me with even more of your cousins sitting on my credit report, but it’s all good because you can take them with you too.

I don’t know how it happened that you grew to more than $120,000 before I even noticed.  I was so ashamed that you had consumed so much of my life that I just didn’t know what to do.  You seriously just paralyzed me with fear, ‘cause honestly honey, how do you fight a monster that’s so big?

You know what happened debt? We had a bad thing going for so long that you got comfortable; you started taking me for granted.  I went to work every day but you sat at home getting happy and lazy.  You got fat while I was working hard, trying to make ends meet and I just didn’t know how to pry you off my couch.

It’s okay though, because I got smarter.  I educated myself about money and finances but you didn’t like that, did you?  You liked me being ignorant about credit and debt and about how I could make my money work for me.  The smarter I got and the more debt busting techniques I put into place, the more panicky you got.  Maybe you realized that I was slipping out of your grasp when I started to hang out on the websites of my finance friends, soaking up as much knowledge as possible.  Or maybe the final nail in the coffin was when I hit the button to pay off $50,000 in less than two years.

So long you life sucking vampire.  Let’s never do this again.

Sandy

• Author
• Recent Posts

Melanie

Melanie Lockert is the founder of the blog and author of the book, Dear Debt. Through her blog, she chronicled her journey out of $81,000 in student loan debt. She is also the co-founder of the Lola Retreat, which helps bold women face their fears, own their dreams and figure out a plan to be in control of their finances. She is passionate about empowering women, helping others get out of debt, and focuses on the intersection of debt and mental health. Every September she organizes a Suicide Prevention Awareness Blog Tour, to help share resources for those struggling with debt and suicide. In addition to her love of personal finance, art and music, she is also a karaoke master and a cat mom to Miles and Thelonious.

Latest posts by Melanie (see all)

• Talking About Money and Mental Health - September 12, 2022
• Dear Debt, We’re Better Apart - June 27, 2022
• Announcing The Mental Health and Wealth Summit - May 4, 2021