Cleaning up your credit score: the three stages of grief

Tell me if you've heard this story before. Girl gets a job and works hard. Makes money and decides to buy nice things. One nice thing turns into many nice things. Many nice things turn into bigger nice things. Bigger nice things turn into credit card debt. Girl gets a better paying job, continues to work hard, continues to spend and repeats the cycle. Man, I should have listened to my parents (shhh, don’t tell them I said that).

This summer I came face to face with my credit card debt. My 10 year old car with 190,000+ miles on it was making a new awful sound and coupled with the check engine light that had been on for about 6 months, I thought it was time to buy a new car. But a lot had changed in 10 years, gone was that girl who bought her first car and had stellar credit. Now stood a woman who stared at her credit score in disbelief, sure some of the numbers were the same but the number order wasn't. It was a far cry from what it once was.  So my journey to clean up my credit began.  

To do this though, I had to admit a one thing to myself.  I needed to get serious about a budget. For an independent spirit trapped in a practical mind, this was in direct contradiction to my personality.  I lived in the now, I work now, I want this now, I need this now, I want to go on vacation now, I want to move out now.  While I was fortunate to have my now’s and eat them too, it was bound to catch up to me.

Enter the new car dilemma. So here’s the thing, creating a budget isn't hard; it’s following it that trips me up. I've always justified that the reason I could buy myself nice things was because I worked hard. While that’s true in some respects, in others it’s not. What I failed to take into consideration was my five, ten, fifteen year plan (my mom would be so proud to read about me writing about this now). It was time I started thinking of future Shadi.

I started saving three months before I bought my new car. I budgeted and cut unnecessary spending. I didn't need that new purse or shoes. No more Starbucks, I could drink coffee at home or from work. Two ply toilet paper instead of three. I asked myself three questions, do I need it? Why do I need it? Am I sure I can’t live without it? The formula wasn't perfect and on occasion I spent money even when I shouldn't have, but I saved enough for a down payment.

While I saved, I started cleaning up my credit. I printed detailed copies from all three credit unions and began calling banks, writing letters and getting on payment plans. And, I  also experienced three stages of grief while cleaning up my credit. And here's the the thing - no one ever talks about the emotions you experience when you have to clean up your credit. Sure you can do any Google search and find article after article on how to clean up your credit. But the emotional part is never even hinted at and let me tell you, calling banks and having to explain yourself and your financial situations to corporations that are only interested in making a profit can be an extremely demoralizing experience. So anyway, without further delay, here are the top three emotions I felt when I started cleaning up my credit. 

1. Anger – I realized what a scam credit scores are. I became enraged that my 28 year old self was being held accountable for what my 24 year old self did. Hello, I’m a changed person! Haven’t they seen my budget! My 24 year old self was so stupid (just kidding, you were awesome!).
2. Depression – I began to think there’s was no hope. There is no way I can clean up my credit enough to get that good interest rate.  Now I’ll get ripped at the car dealership and have to pay twice as much for my car in interest. 
3. Acceptance  – I realized that I had to accept the system. Bad credit didn't define me. I am not the only one with bad credit. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I am not a bad person for having bad credit. As Lily Allen put it in Everything's just Wonderful,  “Well it’s very funny, cause I got your fucking money and I’m never gonna get it because of my bad credit. Oh well I guess I mustn't grumble, I suppose that just the way the cookie crumbles.”

So yes, cleaning up my credit is still a work in progress  and once I got past the frustration I challenged myself to view my credit as a sort of unintentional diary. Every credit card told a story, A trip to New York, A road trip to Arizona,  a couch for my apartment, a card from when I as unemployed, a trip to the ER when I had a panic attack (funny story, more on that later).  Revisiting those memories was sort of like a silver lining that helped me realized how much I’d grown and experienced in the last 10 years.

I was able to get my new car with a low interest rate thanks to the kindness of my parents and an honest dealership.  But the lessons from this experience are not lost on me. I continue to budget, clean up my credit and think about future Shadi all the time. Next up, Roth IRAs and a new purse (whaaaaat, I work hard!). ;)

How To Survive The 6:00 a.m. Wake Up Call

It wasn't that long ago that I was beating my cell phone and mumbling to my mother "Five more minutes please" as I dreaded getting up and facing yet another school day. I would consider myself a morning person but there is something about waking up on someone else's terms that always irked me. Twelve years of early mornings made me swear off those A.M. classes in college. Of course I was not the only one with this idea and therefore ended up taking more 8:00 a.m. classes than I desired, blame my procrastination and late registration. Still being young, agile, and full of energy the ability to sleep four hours and then stay out all night never fazed me. Something I took for granted then but was told by my mom repeatedly "this isn't going to last forever" and sadly, like with mostly everything she tells me, she was right. 

Long gone are the days of sleeping at 3:00 a.m. and waking up at 7:00 a.m. for work. No more multiple nights of no sleep with little repercussion. Welcome to the world of bags under your eyes and yawning every five minute if you sleep a minute under seven hours. Here is to looking like the Crypt Keeper's younger sister when I don't get a "good night" sleep. So that's what they mean by beauty sleep? It all makes sense!

I currently have a job that wakes me up at 6:15 a.m. every morning. You might not think this is too bad, and technically it isn't. I've had jobs where I had to rise at 3:00 a.m. and take 2 buses and 3 trains to make it to work on time. Still, I was younger then, full of life, hopeful about the world and it's surroundings. Right now I just want to get more sleep or at least some caffeine in my system. I'm starting to believe that the worst version of yourself is present in the few second from when you are woken up by your alarm and you press snooze. In the past few weeks I have developed a cheat sheet to try to combat the "I hate my life, I'm going to punch someone" feeling that I get every time I hear my alarm. 

Am I an Adult yet?

Source: http://pleasestopbeingsad.tumblr.com

Maybe it was because I had worked really long hours this summer or maybe it was because I hadn't slept well or maybe I was about to get my period, maybe it was all of the above. All I knew was that it was the third time that week I had left work late and had cried while driving home. We all have that moment right, where things aren't going right and you begin to reflect on your life and your current situation and you cry. God I hope we all have those moments.

During this particular cry session, I realized was that I am 28 and a mess. I had bad credit, little to no savings, my car was falling apart, my apartment was a mess, I had gained more weight  and most of all I was working so much that I left very little time for my family, friends and least of all myself.  Was this what adulthood looked like?  One thing was for sure, I needed to stop crying while driving 70 mph on the freeway, my mascara was starting to burn my eyes (what’s up with that?).

Since then I've asked myself what’s an adult? Does being an adult mean having stellar A+ credit, owning a house, having a clean home, being married, having a kid, being healthy (do I need to memorize the food pyramid… is it even a pyramid anymore?), feeling put together, having a 401k, having a savings account, having a work life balance, hanging with family and friends and having hobbies?  

Part of me wants to throw the middle finger up and say to hell with it, I am who I am (a crying commuter with bad credit) and things will work out when I turn 30! Because side note, I always imagined that when I turn 30, there would be a fairy god mother or something and I would magically feel put together and dress age appropriate. What I’m learning is that in order for that magical moment to happen I have to take steps to make it happen.

So this is where I am, currently working to make myself a better version of the adult I am (or think I am). There’s a whole journey I’m about to take, and I’m sure it will be boring and lame but I’ll be documenting it on the World Wide Web anyway.