Wednesday, October 10, 2018

To Get Out of Debt Faster, Make More Money


People say this like it’s so easy, but it’s not. Especially in my profession. And especially if you value family time. And even more so again when you work in town and also play chauffeur to two busy teenagers.

As a teacher, opportunities to earn extra money are very hard to come by. I work a full time job and also spend extra hours at home planning and preparing lessons. The few (in my district, 3) extra possible pay days are spaced out throughout the year and I try to take advantage of them, but sometimes I can’t. This year, I was unable to take advantage of the first one because I was too far behind in preparing my classroom. (Being behind was not all my fault, my janitor never put my room back together. I went to school 3 different days and was unable to work in my room.)

It's also difficult to make extra money when you enjoy spending time with your family. I don’t want to give up time with my in order to earn more money. I understand that getting out of debt takes sacrifice; but as long as my kids want to spend time with The Husband and me, we want to be there. They are only “ours” for so long and we want to be with them as much as possible.

The last reason we can’t just “make more money” is I already have a second job… as an unpaid chauffeur. Both The Kids are teenagers and they live very busy lives. I am constantly dropping off and picking up at school, football, and dance. That doesn’t take into account in social activities that The Kids do (when they aren’t otherwise occupied with their extra-curricular activities).

I’ve said this before, but I feel it’s worth repeating. We got ourselves into this debt mess and it’s up to us to get ourselves out of it, without asking our kids to sacrifice. We want them to be kids and to have experiences that kids have, and they do. Having said that, they don’t get to do everything they want or buy everything they want. We’ve told them we have debt. We’ve told them if they want something badly enough, they can work to buy it themselves; but me picking up a second job would limit my time with them and their opportunities to do anything outside of school hours.

Just “making more money” isn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s not that we aren’t committed to getting out of debt, because we are. But we are also committed to spending time with The Kids and giving them the best life that we can.

Life is a balancing act and we haven’t been very good at balancing the scales, but we are trying. I’m setting small goals to help us dig out of this very deep hole that we dug for ourselves. I just wish getting out of debt was as easy as “making more money”.

Small Goal #1: Less than $18000 in credit card debt by 12/31/2018… I’m coming for you so look out!

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