If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The other day I had a reader leave me a comment asking how I got to be so far in debt if I have been tracking my expenses since I was 16 years old.  Instead of being off put by this question, I replied to her honestly and thought I would address it here, too.

Yes, it’s true that I’ve been tracking my expenses since I was 16 and got my first job.  It’s also true that at the start of this blog I was over $44,000 in debt.  I guess some would probably like to know how those two situations go hand in hand and landed me in this predicament at the age of 24.  This blog is for me to come clean and be honest with myself (and readers) in order to fix the things I’ve done wrong in the past when it comes to my personal finances.

Tracking my income/expenses only means that I knew where my money was coming from and going.  It doesn’t mean that I made smart decisions on how to spend that money.  I used credit cards.  A lot.  I didn’t save.  Ever.  But I always had a balanced checkbook and never missed a credit card payment.  That’s where tracking kept me in line.  I was smart in that respect, just not smart in the ways I spent my money and accrued debt.

It’s one thing to know where your money is going.  It’s a completely different thing to have the dedication and commitment to only use cash or pay off any debt you accrue each month.  Not to mention, when I got married, my husband and I combined all accounts so my debt became his and his became mine.  The $44,000 is a combination of both of our bad habits from a young age.

So, I hope that clarifies.  I don’t want people to think that tracking expenses automatically means that you  are smart with your money.  I’m living proof of that one.  I didn’t follow a budget, I simply wrote everything down to ensure I never went over credit limits or spent more than I had in my checking account.  I was smart, just not smart enough.