In my early twenties, I thought I had the world figured out. I had a wife, two kids, my own business, my own house and a pile of debt. I had grown up with credit card and bank commercials throwing money at me. It was the mid-eighties and credit was easy to get.
I had built a house on a piece of land given to me by my parents. My construction cost was low because I ran my own light construction company. My dad had cosigned a loan to start my business. The bank was happy to give me a construction loan with the land as collateral.
Once I had a good credit rating the bank they actually called to offer me my first credit card. Of course, I said yes, I wanted the card.
My first credit card made life so easy. I bought new furniture and just paid a few dollars a month. I bought a new freezer; it just added a few dollars to my credit card payments. I was able to make my minimum payments without much problem. The bank even offered to raise my credit limit. Again I said yes.
This easy money gave me an idea. If I got another card I could use it to for my company and free up more cash to expand, great idea right. I bought paint sprayers and lifts to set shingles onto the roofs, all Things that made the work easier and faster for my crews. Then the bottom fell out of the housing industry.
My business went from boom to soup line. I couldn’t find contracts and had to start laying off workers and the friendly bankers weren’t so friendly anymore. They wanted their money and didn’t take credit cards. I was behind on those payments anyway. Literally, I was losing everything I had. The Money In A Hurry was a big mistake on my end. This is why I needed to rethink my plan and work more to improve my financial health and my credit score along with that.
Then I saw a commercial for debt consolidation loans. I didn’t figure I had anything to lose at this point so I called the number. The nice lady took my information and made me an appointment to come into the office.
When I meet with the loan officer, we went over my personal finances and company books analyzing each item. He illustrated for me where and how I had gotten into this situation and explained how I could get out of it.
We rolled all my debts into one loan. The interest was slightly higher than my old bank loans but much lower than what I paid on my credit card debt. I was able to work out a budget that allowed me to keep my home and business and still feed my family.
Debt consolidation saved my world. I cut up my credit cards and have lived without one till today.
