Dear Debt Letter: Mario from Debt BLAG and Adventures in Frugal

Melanie’s Note: We have an awesome dear debt letter from Mario! Mario maintains two personal finance blogs: At DebtBLAG.com, he talks about getting out of debt and saving toward retirement and at AdventuresInFrugal.com, he talks about using frugality and other personal finance tools to live a life he enjoys. Happy Friday and show him some love! If you are interested in ‘consciously uncoupling’ with your debt, contact me.

Dear Debt – We need to talk.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been, what, seven years now? It seems like only yesterday that we met for the first time — I needed a little something extra for the house and didn’t have the money at the time and there you were. You were ready and willing to give what seemed like everything to me. But from then on, it was all about you.

I’ve never mentioned this before, but my friends didn’t take to you. They said you were manipulative and controlling — that you specialized in sucking the life out of men’s mind, heart, and soul.

I wanted to believe that they were wrong — that I could stay in control of who I was despite letting you into my life.

But they were right.

You worked your way in, slowly at first, but surely. For so many years you were always in the back of my mind, making me feel inadequate, trapped.

But maybe that was my problem, not yours.

In the end, let’s just say we’re into different things.

For example, you like lifelong commitment. You like lavish spending that I can’t afford. You like sacrificing all kinds of tomorrows to live it up today.

And I don’t like you.

Anyhow, I hope we can be cool about this. Really, the only thing I’d want back would be that polo shirt you slept in a couple months back just because you know how hard it is for me to find clothes that fit well and…

You know what, just keep it.

-Mario

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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.

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