Melanie

Hey debt fighters! We have another great dear debt letter to inspire you to break up with debt. This letter is from Sarah, a 26-year-old experiential educator currently working and living in Virginia. She is working her way to a fulfilled debt-free life. 

—

Dear Debt,

The thought of you completely overwhelms me some days, and then others I feel like I can start to grasp my thoughts around you. Today is a particularly hard day. I feel like there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t seem to see it. I have wrapped my self-worth and my net worth into the same thought. I know this isn’t true, though I am really struggling to get past it.

You make me feel like I’m not good enough, and that I don’t deserve to be happy or enjoy life anymore. You are one of the reasons I ended a relationship, moved away from a place that I loved, and constantly think that I am not good or deserving enough of people, experiences, and things.

I don’t have a plan to magically erase you, and know that our relationship will continue for some years to come. I am determined that I will amicably end this relationship in the future though. One day I will be rid of you. Until that day, I will actively remind myself each day that you don’t define me. My self-worth is not attached to you. I am enough, and I am an asset to this tiny spinning globe in our big wide universe. I care about others, and others care about me. You do not change that exchange of human connection.

I cannot let myself be defined or weighed down by you anymore. My life is but a candle flicker in this big, long infinity, and I don’t want to snuff it out early because of how overwhelmed you can make me feel.

Looking forward to the day we amicably part,

Sarah

Hey debt fighters! We have a heartfelt, vulnerable dear debt letter this week from Lynn. Please be kind to yourself and remember you are not alone. You are not a loan. If you need help, please seek support. 

—

Dear Debt,

Of all the weight I carry yours is the heaviest. You take my breath at night when I’m trying to sleep.  You occupy my thoughts constantly. You remind me I have no worth, no hope, and no future. You make me bitter and angry inside at friends who are in better financial shape than I am. In January you almost killed me.

I’m putting the weight down. I cannot carry it anymore. I have no plan and my financial situation is worse now than ever, but I’m choosing to put the backpack of boulders you’ve had me carry across my shoulders on the floor.

I pray for a miracle daily and that you’ll disappear from my life. I ask the universe that a ton of money might appear in my mailbox and maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

Regardless, you won’t define me anymore. I cannot give you my happiness or my self-worth for one more moment. You will not take an ounce of joy from me.  You are just a number.

Sincerely,
Lynn

Hey debt fighters! We have another dear debt letter for you from Meg. Meg is a financial independence convert and travel hacker who can be found on Tumbler (MegansMadTravel) exploring the hits and misses of flying for nearly free with only a backpack. Her 2018 goal, to visit 12 states in 12 months has blossomed into international travel and for 2019 she looks forward to finally completing her book on finance, debt, and personal value.

—

Dear Debt,

It’s been a five year road with you and three years since I started keeping a journal to recount my journey. But in three short months I will have paid off $32k (and more in interest) of credit card debt and I am both excited and at a loss as I don’t know who I’ll be without you.

Debt, you’ve impacted the career choices I made. You’ve forced me to be creative, to step outside my comfort zone and to think outside the box. This year, even though I was almost entirely focused on you, I was able to travel, largely for free. You made me search for other ways to live my dreams, and as such I found an entire community of people.

You set me on FIRE debt. I have always wanted to work less, to live more and in paying you off I found Financial Independence, I found Early Retirement. You changed my world with travel hacking, and you gave me the tools I needed to forge a new path.

For years I thought of you as an albatross, the weight keeping me down. But I want to thank you debt, for all that you’ve given me. Even though now, I’m not sorry to say, our time together is over.

Meg

Hey debt fighters! We have another dear debt letter for you from Marly. Marly has $46,000 in student loan debt. She currently works three jobs, one being a Brand Ambassador and is focused on paying off debt. 

—

Dear Debt,

We have been together for 13 years now. 13 years! You are my longest relationship to date, but it is time to let you go. Our relationship has been stale for a while; I only give you the bare minimum so that you would not bother me. I just have never been in the mood to give you more.

I kept you around by giving you my crumbs and you stuck around. Month after month. Year after year. I wanted to enjoy my life outside of you. But I am now realizing that I can’t live like this.

I can’t fully enjoy my life with you around. It’s started to feel like a one-way relationship; you get your pleasure and your fun from all the things that “interest” you and I was stuck footing the bill. Month after month you do this to me. You take, take, take.

Don’t get me wrong. I do appreciate the fact that my babies would not be in my life because of you. Job, Skills, and Competence would not be here today if it wasn’t for you. I love them very much. But you are draining me. It’s time to say goodbye, once and for all.

I received the final divorce papers today stating I am paid in full. This means we are through. I have no legal obligation to see you again.

Sincerely,

Marly Rateau

Hey debt fighters! We have another dear debt letter from Free. Check out her blog. 

—

Dear Debt,

This is the first time that I’ve acknowledged you but you have been in my life for almost 2 years. At first, I loved you. I needed you. I had no job, no money and a baby. I just finished undergraduate school and thought that graduate school was just the next step in my life.

I was fortunate enough to graduate undergrad without you, but I refused to let my mother pay for another semester of school. So I decided to take out 20k of you. You-Student loan debt. I told myself that you would cover my tuition and my child’s nursery tuition for an entire year (emphasis on entire).

Yes, you paid for my degree but you only paid for 5 months of my child’s tuition. Apparently, tuition wasn’t the only thing you paid for. Where did that money go? What about the other 5 months? Oh, I recall now.

You went to plane tickets that you didn’t use. To Chinese food. To pizza. To subways. To clothes. To lending money (without it being returned) And 1000 of you went to a “boyfriend” to help pay for his rent and to bail him out of jail.

You see debt. You are more than just “borrowed money” You are a reflection of me. Spending money that I didn’t have to feel loved. To feel validated. Just to end up feeling BROKE.

But I did have your interest. $2000 worth of interest. Your initial 20k turned into over 22k. So this is a break up letter debt. I packed peanut butter sandwiches to work, sacrificed clothes and anything else to pay you off. Now you are down to $9100.

It feels like it took forever to get down to 4 digits. This calls for a celebration. A free celebration of course. Now I’m wiser. Now I know that I have to be INTENTIONAL with how I use you and money. You debt are not all bad. You have a good side to you.

You give people the opportunity to get things that they could not get on their own and much faster. Debt. Money. Thank you for helping me get a Masters degree at 23 and land an Amazing first job. But our relationship. You and I. Are over!

-Freefromfoolishness

(Editor’s note: Free is now debt-free! Congrats!) 

Hey debt fighters! It’s been a while but we’re back. Here’s an honest and refreshing dear debt letter from Amy. Amy is a mom to three teenage girls, a graduate student, a yoga teacher, and a somatic movement therapist. Amy feels blessed to have learned from so many wildly talented healing professionals and passes on their knowledge to lift others. She lives in Silver Spring MD.

Dear Debt,

I am shocked by how brazen I’ve become with you. Taunting you. Pushing boundaries. Just waiting for something to happen. Something BAD to happen.

When will you get me back? I fear the payback…

Maybe that’s why I keep taunting you. Maybe I like living in fear. Maybe living with you, debt, is like living in fear. And my nervous system is used to that. It likes feeling unsettled, and unbalanced. That is what it knows. My nervous system doesn’t know what safety feels like. I don’t know what safety feels like.  I only know how to perpetuate insecurity and fear, and I use you as a big anchor to keep me in that place. Weighted down by debt and fear and insecurity. What a familiar feeling, so familiar that I have confused it with comfortable.  

I think it’s time to try a new relationship. This may seem sudden, but it’s been a long time coming. It’s time that we go our separate ways, debt.  I’m finished giving you my time and energy.  

I’m ready to feel strong and safe now. I’m ready to fly. I’m ready to feel light. I’m ready to accept love. I’m ready to receive.

Amy

Hey debt fighters! We have a brand spankin’ new dear debt letter from Carrie. Carrie lives in Brooklyn and is a dancer, lover of the sunshine and beauty & a freelance enrollment consultant. 

—

Dear Debt,

Hello dear friend of mine.

I have had a strange relationship with you.

It’s funny because I didn’t even know we had this strange relationship until now.

You’ve helped me through a lot of amazing times in my life.

Because of you, I have gotten my health coaching certification, jumped in full force to Goddess Training with the SWA, and then got to live my first real entrepreneurial gig as an enrollment specialist.

I am so grateful to which you have given me these enormous opportunities in my life.

But you’ve also unseemingly have been a tie down in my emotional well being. The shame, guilt, and fear I have faced lodged up in my body because of you has been devastating on my well being. You’ve kept me small, in hiding, and not truly sharing my gifts and talents in the world, because I have used you as a crutch, something that I can always lean back on.

I am ready to break-up with you and move onto my financially prosperous life. One in which I am smart, confident, and powerful when it comes to my money- how I earn it, and how I spend it. One in which I feel the freedom of working on projects that are my own, traveling the world, speaking, writing books, and dancing like it’s no one’s business. Living a life big, beautifully, and boldly- the life that I deserve to live.

So I thank you for which you have given me. I thank you for this.

And now, it is time for us to part. So that I can be independent, free, and at peace.

I wish you well,

With love,

Carrie

Hey debt fighters! Ready to ditch debt in 2018?! Let’s do it! Today’s dear debt letter comes to us from Aparna. She has been bravely facing up to her debt for some years now. This struggle made her realize the importance of and her passion for personal finance. Now, a Certified Financial Planner herself, she pens down all her thoughts in her blog Elementum Money. 

She also did a cool profile on Dear Debt! Enjoy. 

—

Dear Debt,

I have had the most twisted relationship with you, ever. I was fortunate to not need you while completing my education thanks to my parents saving enough.

My first run-in with you was with my first banking job. I had heard of all types of loans, but with a job in a loan department of one of the largest private sector bank in the country opened my eyes.

There is an old saying that banks check that you don’t need a loan to give you a loan. That might have been true earlier but I saw how in order to get the next new thing or fulfill their dream, everyone is eager to get that loan. Banks are as eager to make it happen for them.
You, dear debt, were my bread and butter. If people stopped falling for the bigger versions of you, that time I would have stopped earning my living.

In India, one way of thinking is to get a house if you are not making good use of your money. Hey, that way at least a large chunk of your salary will go towards building an asset. We bought into it. Do I regret it? I am on the fence on this one.

However, apart from the big brother Home Loan, I met your younger siblings as well – Credit Card Loan and Personal Loan. I had varying needs for all of you ending up in a home of my own. I can say, that together the debt family helped me build for us a home I look forward to coming back to. A house which is comfortable, lavish even and a place that can be called ours forever.

While I never really talked to anyone openly, till the time me and my husband, both were earning stable monthly salaries we managed. Around us, loans are seen as a common-place way of life. There is barely any shame associated with it which makes it that much harder to find the motivation to work like crazy and ditch it like a bad habit.

Then earlier last year, the husband finally decided that corporate life was not his cup of tea. I was ecstatic because for years it had only been me trying to tell him that corporate shackles might not help him to give the wings that his creativity deserved. The one thing that weighed us down and made us stop in our tracks was, you guessed it, you Dear Debt!

We had multiple sessions of checking out all the numbers of my salary and how would we survive on that one salary with the massive monthly installments. With any new venture, we wanted to give it enough time to find its feet and account for at least a 2 year period of running the household on a single salary.

Finally, we had to withdraw the entire retirement savings that my husband was able to accumulate while working in his corporate job. In India, any corporate job docks off 12% of your basic salary every month and it gets accumulated in something called the Employee Provident Fund.

Thank god for those forced savings! Otherwise you, dear debt, had very nearly taken our dreams and aspiration off the rails.

It is only after I started blogging and became aware of the Personal Finance blogosphere that I became aware of just how important it is for me to break up with you. I dream of becoming self- employed too, some day. Can I let you come in the way of such a dream? Most definitely not.

I will end this letter with an answer to 2 simple questions that I ask myself:

Am I grateful for what you got into my life and did I need you at that time? Most definitely YES.

Do I like having you in my life right now? No. And I look forward to working harder, earning more and breaking up with you.

Till then, adios, dear debt.

Aparna

Hey debt fighters! Today we have a dear debt letter from Mary Ann Marriott (aka Dr. Debt) who blogs at www.DrDebt.ca and helps people have healthier, happier finances. 

—

Dear Debt,

To say we have a functional relationship would be an understatement. Heck!, to say that I like you would be an outright lie. I may not like you very much, but I do appreciate you. And I suspect that is something that you do not hear very often. But it is true. In fact, I want to thank you for the support you have given me over the years.

Thank you for allowing me to purchase our home. As I sit on the deck looking at the ocean, weed my gardens, watch our chickens peck away at the earth and do the everyday mundane things a homeowner does, I feel gratitude in my heart for the opportunity to live here.

Thank you for supporting me when I made that huge leap from being an employee to an entrepreneur. Without you I likely never would have jumped. You helped me bridge the gap between employment and self-employment. Thank you!

Thank you for being there as I brought two little beings into the world. I had no maternity benefits and had to return to my business two months later leaving my husband to step-in and take Paternity leave. The reduction in income was tough, but you helped us keep food on the table and afford the necessities for us and our new little ones. For that I thank you!

When we got back on our feet again, it was a wonderful feeling to be able to repay you for your kindness and watch your balance decrease month after month. Sadly, that period of time was short-lived.

But you were there again to support us as my husband changed careers and went from job to job, looking for his place. You were there when the company he worked for shut down, when the seasonal job he had laid him off, sometimes expectedly and sometimes unexpectedly, and you were there when he injured himself and couldn’t return to work for months on end. Really, I don’t know how we would have survived without you. I am certain we would have lost our home in those times.

It’s easy to blame you for the choices we have made, for the need to depend on you during trying times. It’s easy to point our finger at you and say, “It’s because of you that we can’t travel, or buy that ATV, or fix up our home”. Which leads me to my final expression of appreciation.

Thank you for teaching me how relying on you can upset our future plans. Thank you for showing me that allowing you in our lives takes away our financial power and increases the cost of every expected and unexpected emergency,  creating a deeper and deeper hole for us to climb out of. Thank you for reminding me that there is a better way.

As I watch our emergency fund grow, and our obligations to you slowly decrease, I resist the urge to blame you, or demean you, or attack your character. Instead, I remind myself that you were there through all of the tough times to help out and it was I who chose to rely upon you, who allowed you to continue to be our support system. And in that process I have learned a lot about myself and about you.

I am comfortable with our new relationship, one that doesn’t have the air of dependency. Having said that, I look forward, so forward, to the day when we part ways, the day when I see you reduce to zero, when I say goodbye to an old way of being and let my new way of being flourish.

Thank you Debt. I release you. With love and gratitude.

Mary Ann Marriott (aka Dr. Debt)