Young and In Debt

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As you might have guessed from my previous post, finding a job in Young’s native region didn’t go quite as quickly as I’d hoped. Over the past few months, I have gotten a little contract work, but nothing permanent.

In part, I realize, this is because I haven’t really been going about things in an efficient way. I tend to focus hard on one opportunity at a time, and fail to pay attention to other possibilities. My current plans are to send out resumes to the last handful of local companies that might could use my skills, and if I don’t hear anything fairly quickly, to apply with a temp agency. Since I work in the technology sector, I think it should be fairly easy to get a temp position, but I also thought getting a full-time job wouldn’t be that hard either.

Probably one of the reasons that I am inefficient in my job search is that I’ve never really had to do this before. I had to do almost no searching for my previous job, and it was my first formal employment. The lesson? Don’t be limited by your background or your personality. Where either of them are obstacles, work to adapt.

As a child my parents explicitly taught me about money, and specifically to avoid debt. They had no mortgage and paid their credit card(s) off each month. They never talked about credit scores because they were irrelevant. The point was to spend less than I earned- a lot less. I took their lessons very seriously and perhaps my guiltiest childhood moment consisted in spending a $5 bill entirely on candy. Can you see where this is going?

Once I started college I became financially independent. It was not much of a shock, because I had always expected it and had saved most of my income to cover it. Still, I had to take out loans which I intended to pay off before interest accrued. I also got my first credit card and payed the balance each month. I kept my academic loans under $5,000 by working while in school and taking time off to pay them off when they started to get too large for my comfort.

Then I met In Debt, and seemingly every interaction involving money was painful for me. I tried to squelch most of it, after all what he did with his money was his business and I could just find ways of avoiding spending more than I could afford. Besides, I knew that some moderation would be good for me.

Even as our relationship got more serious, In Debt did not realize how different our views really were. Due to a necessary move and month job hunting, I ended up with $3,000 in credit card debt this spring. I paid it off in a little over two months while working for a temp agency. While In Debt knew about it & I would update him with glee as the figure diminished with my weekly payments, he was not conscious of what I chose to go without to eliminate the debt.

Gradually we became more aware of each other in our financial choices. We sat down and looked at credit reports (his score was about 10 points higher than mine- dratted car loan! ;-)) and talked some about the financial implications of our plans for the next few years. I finally realized that the smartest thing was to finish my undergrad degree ASAP, even if it meant taking on more debt in the short term. He decided to take the risk of moving, something which meant giving up job stability, but potentially doubling salary.

And now, here we are today. Very different and very in debt. But I’ll let In Debt tell about that.

One of the challenging things about trying to manage finances as a couple is the differences in our financial backgrounds, and the consequences that this has on our current attitudes and behavior. This is a summary of my (In Debt’s) background.

When I was growing up, debt never really affected me negatively. I was vaguely aware that there were times when my parents were trying hard to pay off credit cards and other debt, but it never seemed like it was a big deal, since it didn’t change much besides how often we would order a pizza or go to see a movie.

In my teen and college years, I ran my own business. Though I did incur a little debt for business equipment, it was an investment that allowed me to make much more money over the long run, and I always paid off the loans ahead of time.

Thanks to a combination of scholarships and income from my business, I never had to deal with student loans at all.

After college, I quickly moved into a technology related job that paid reasonably well, but continued living at my parents’, thus avoiding the expenses of rent. Because the job was a bit of a distance, I also had to upgrade from my old pickup truck to a relatively new car. At my job I saved, put money into an IRA, and worked to pay off my car loan.

Through all this I…

• Never had to deal with a loss of income
• Never had to deal with much in the way of fixed expenses
• Never had to deal with real debt

As a consequence, I had a very relaxed relationship with money, and just wasn’t used to thinking about financial discipline. If I saw a book I wanted, I’d just buy it.

Then came this fall. Young and I are from different parts of the USA. And despite the pitfalls of long distance relationships, we were in one. It became clear that if we were actually going to make things work, it was time to be close enough to see each other frequently. So I quit my job and moved, expecting that I’d find a decent job relatively quickly. That’s not quite what happened.

Welcome to our blog. This is a place where we will write and share about our experiences of being young and in debt, as well as our attempts to fight our way back out from under that burden.

I think that our experience parallels the experience of many others who find themselves in debt in their early twenties. We hope that as we write about the things that help and hurt us, that it will benefit others who read it.

Of course, it isn’t purely altruistic. We hope that keeping this blog and posting on it regularly will help us keep on track with our financial goals, too. So here we are.