During the writing of this book I decided to do a little experiment. I took myself off a budget for three months and made myself start using a credit card again. I’d been successfully budgeting for more than seven years, and had successfully paid off over $40,000 in debt and half of our mortgage. People around me consider me very good with money, and I agree with them; I am very good with sticking to a budget. I know my boundaries and how to stay within the fence. (Remember, I wasn’t always this way.) But I wanted to see what would happen if I took myself off a budget, stopped using cash, and used a credit card instead. I haven’t owned a single credit card in years, ever since we put ours through a paper shredder. I’ve been using cash for most of the past seven years, so using a credit card again was way outside of my comfort zone.
The first thing I did was to sign up for a card that would give me a certain amount of points if I spent $3,000 in the first three months of using it. I then stopped using cash and decided to only use the credit card for those three months. My goal was to earn enough points for a free stay at a hotel for a fun vacation for my family. I wanted to see how quickly my money rules would go out the window and I would turn back into a Spender.
In the first week I did pretty well. I didn’t spend too much unnecessary money. I did try to find different ways to spend money using the credit card so that I could earn extra points. I paid a few of my bills with the card and paid them off right away online. I figured this couldn’t be bad. Two nights that week I had nightmares in which I woke up in a panic attack. The nightmares were about moving back into our old house in South Carolina, and they were both the same: We decided to return to our old home and found it was back on the market, so we bought it again. I saw my family of six living in the same house where we had lived in during those stressful years. Not only were we back in that house, but we were also again in $40,000 worth of debt. Those dreams felt so real. They were the kind where you wake up and your heart is beating fast and you aren’t sure if you are awake or asleep. I woke up in my current house, thankful that it was only a dream. There was no way I wanted to go back to that old way of life.
Looking back, I see those dreams as a warning. Both times I woke up mid-dream in a panic attack that we were going to go back into debt. I was terrified of using the credit card again. It literally was giving me nightmares, and I found myself hating what I was doing. I could see myself going down the same path again, and I was terrified. I never want to go back to that place of no self-control, transferring balances to zero percent credit cards to stay afloat, and constantly stressed because we didn’t have the money for basic essentials.
At this point, I wanted to quit my experiment; it was just too hard for me to go back to old habits. Ultimately, I decided to stick it out, because the question of whether I would fall back into my old spending habits had not been answered yet.
One day I was having a rough time with the kids. I looked at Mark and said, “Can I just go somewhere by myself for an hour?” Being the great husband that he is, he put the kids to bed and I left the house to find something to do. I live in a small town and there isn’t much open in the evening, so I did what most people do and headed to Walmart (it would have been Target if I had one nearby). I found myself walking around the store, sick to my stomach and anxious, looking around for something to “do” and something to buy. I picked up a York Peppermint Patty, a new curling iron, and some fake eyelashes (a total impulse purchase). I was sad, depressed, and feeling totally lost. I found myself wandering around the brightly lit store without a plan or goal. It was a very lonely feeling, but I realized that living without a budget made me depressed. I had no idea how much money was in our checking account. It felt horrible! Ironically, that feeling of depression over not knowing what was going on led to more spending because of boredom.
At the end of my experiment, three months later, I was a complete mess. I had spent $3,000 on the credit card but paid it off in full every month. Yet I had somehow managed to spend an extra $2,000 on that card and didn’t know where the money had gone or what I had spent it on. I was anxious because I had no idea what we had in our bank account, and I was stressed out to the max. Here I was, seven years later, sitting on that same bed in our much smaller master bedroom. I knew that if I continued to use credit cards this way, I could end up dead broke again.
This was a huge milestone for me in my journey to financial independence. I realized that I will never “arrive” at being good with money. I will forever be in “recovery” as a Spender, and one of the things that I need to continue to do to keep myself in recovery is to stay within my fence. I know that staying inside the fence works for me. I know that if I use cash and set a budget with Mark, I stick to it and feel safe. I don’t know why I always try to play with fire, but whenever I do, I certainly get burned! As a well-known expert in the field of frugal living, it’s hard to admit that I still have the ability to overspend. But how helpful would I be if I said I was perfect? A common reason that Spenders continue to spend is that you lie to yourself—you tell yourself that you can stop spending, but the spending continues. You feel out of control, and that feeling leads you to spend more, and you continue to feel out of control.
If I were to tell you that I have it all figured out, I would be defeating the entire purpose and message of this book. I know that I will always be a Spender, but after seven years of successful budgeting and not owning a credit card, I thought I was strong enough to have one. The reality is that I am not, and I’m not sure I ever will be. But what I do know is that if I set a budget and make sure I am safe within my fence—I do amazingly well! I got us into over $40,000 worth of debt, and I got us out of over $40,000 worth of debt. I got us in debt by using credit cards, and I got us out by not using credit cards.
I decided to run this experiment on myself to see if I am strong enough to live outside the fence, to see if so many years of good financial habits had changed me. Unfortunately, the conclusion is that despite my excellent financial habits and new ways, it’s dangerous to reintroduce some of my old temptations, because I fall right back into my old ways. This is why this book is called The Recovering Spender and not The Recovered Spender. To be in recovery, you must constantly be trying to better yourself. If I were recovered, I would be able to use a credit card and not overspend. I am in recovery, which means that I am in a constant state of trying to better myself and improve my spending habits. I realize that one bad turn can lead me down a road that I do not want to travel. One bad financial move can turn into a financial disaster for anyone who is a Recovering Spender like I am.
If you find something that works and helps you stay inside your fence, by all means continue doing it! Despite how much time you’ve been inside your fence, there is always danger on the other side. I much prefer to stay within my fence, stay out of debt, be happy and financially fulfilled by keeping a budget, and live the rest of my life as a Spender in recovery.