Sitting on the curb that night, my expensive sports car repossessed only hours earlier, I thought to myself, “How the hell did I let this happen?” I was not a stupid, but clearly, I didn’t have my life together. I was in my early twenties, employed, and somehow drowning in past due bills. As I laid in bed that night, I thought of a million excuses to justify my situation. “It’s the finance company’s fault for not giving me more time to make my payment, or maybe the dealer that should have never sold me a car that was expensive with my income, or maybe it was the credit card company’s fault, for refusing to raise my credit limits while being maxed out.”
In the midst of my most impressive pity party, another thought came to mind. I quickly brushed it off and tried to focus on another excuse to tell myself. But the thought came back again, and again, and again. I began to feel a sinking, and hopeless feeling in the pit of my stomach. At that moment I realized that this could only be blamed on one person, me.
To make matters worse, I knew better than to be this irresponsible. Not in the, “my parents raised me to be more responsible kind of way” but worse. At the time, I had a job at a finance company and I was suppose to be helping other people get our of their financial nightmare, not creating my own. I sat paralyzed in my bed with my mind racing and my heart pounding. I managed to pull my thoughts together for a brief moment of sanity and said to myself, “tomorrow is a new day and I will figure out a way to fix this, I mean at least it can’t get any worse.”
The next morning as I walked back from the gas station across the street, using my last bit of cash to buy some snacks to survive on until next payday, I could see an envelope peeking out from beneath my door. “Oh my God” I literally said out loud. I opened the envelope and read the Three-Day Rent Collection Notice. Seriously? This couldn’t be right, I just paid rent the previous week. A painful phone call later with the leasing office confirmed my rent check had bounced and rent was due immediately. If I didn’t pay, I would be evicted. By this point, I was having a full-blown panic attack. I slumped down on the floor of my “soon to be” former apartment to take toll of the damage I had managed to create in the last 24 hours. My car was repossessed, I am about to be evicted, and I have bills that are already past due, I am totally screwed!
Every day, people are waking up to their own financial nightmare. Realizing that they have a very simple yet complicated problem. They owe more money than they have. And in most cases, it’s the usual suspects; student loans that have piled up, credit card debt with high interest rates, mortgages and cars that have defaulted, or astronomical medical bills. And for many of us, the task of sorting through the mess, and creating a plan to clean it up, is too exhausting to even think about.
I found myself in my own financial nightmare as I was just starting out on my own as an adult. For me, the first step was to overcome my pride and to get out of my own way. This meant, sharing the dirty little secrets of all my finances and asking for help. This powerful first step is the key to ending the cycle of debt and poor financial habits. It is when we can ask for help and be transparent about our money, that we begin to see not only how we got here, but how we can get out, and back on the right path.
But to understand how we get out of the mess, we have to rewind, to where it all began…
I was not born with a silver spoon and my last name didn’t end in Rockefeller or Vanderbilt. I grew up in the Midwest and spent summers on my grandparent’s farm in Missouri. My father is a Vietnam army veteran who put himself through Bible College by working night security and attending class during the day. My mother worked as a secretary for law firms and universities. Every Sunday, my parents would take our family to church, this is where you could say that I learned my first lessons in money. The offering plate would come around and folks would throw in wadded up bills or loose change, whatever they had to give. Even with my $5 allowance, I was expected to tithe 10%.
Giving was my first lesson in money. My parents would tell me, give and you shall receive. This lesson still carries true today. As I reflect on the times on my life where I gave, I always received more than I expected. It wasn’t always money that I was able to give, sometimes it was my time. Like the time that I helped my best friend move into his third story apartment during the summer in Florida. Other times, it was giving what I had, like a home to share with relatives while they found a new place. Profoundly, its the reason why I started my career in banking, and now carry forward with my clients as a Financial Coach.
I began my career in finance after high school and took a job as a Part Time Teller at our local bank. On my first day as a teller my boss, a tough, tall, Brooklyn-raised, woman, said in her distinct New York accent, “first and foremost we are not in the money business here, we are in the people business.” I remember staring at her, absolutely confused, and lost in my own thoughts. “I mean, this is a bank, isn’t this where people literally go to get money?” I think she knew that she just blew my mind, so she leaned in and said, “people are our purpose, money is our service.” That advice, on my very first day of work, became my moral compass throughout my career, if I am not helping someone, then I am not serving my purpose.
Truth and Cents 