My debt story

So I guess this is another personal finances blog.
I’ve had an epiphany in 2017 when I was fired and found myself in a really scary place.
But I wanted to tell it from my perspective.
I am, indeed, a broke designer living in a Third World country. And this is my debt story.

I was laid off of my job in 2017, already in debt.

I have a personal debt that I never really care much about paying, nor even sure how much money it was, throwing whatever money was left after I paid my credit cards and my expenses for the month.

I am a fashion and textile designer, which, it might sound fancy to some of you, but, in Argentina, that would often mean being in charge of the production process at a clothing factory. And, believe me, there is nothing fancy nor glamorous about that. Starting with the income.

So there I was, living the fantasy that I was a sufficient, strong, independent woman. Who, in reality was barely scraping by, month by month, and couldn’t even afford to go on vacation, or to move out to a nicer apartment, or even to move out at all, since I had no savings.

I was broke, and I didn’t know it.

Didn’t realise until I started paying with my credit card a ski trip for me and my 3 siblings (yeah, I’m THAT stupid), only to find out at the middle of those payments that I was being fired. 

I didn’t want to arise worries around my family so I kept the appearances and borrow money to continue paying for the trip and also pay for my living expenses while the compensation check from my former job kicked in.

Guess what.

It never did.

That is another beauty of living in a third world country, laws are blurry, and small companies would often take advantage of employees and not pay their salaries. Then write checks without founds and wait for the law suits. 

Of course by the time that law suit knocks on their doors, the company would probably don’t exist. Actually I recently found out that this particular company that fired me is almost out of business now.

At first I was confident that I would find another job eventually. I also had a side hustle by renting my room trough Airbnb, so that would at least cover my rent expenses.

Little that I knew, Murphy’s law was breathing down my neck and one week after I lost my job, my whole building ran out of gas.

Another third world country perk! In here, is very common to have the stove , heating and hot water trough gas, rather than electric. And when the gas company comes to your building and find even a small leak , they would shut down the service for the entire building for months until a certified gas technician fixes the problem, and the whole bureaucracy for that can take several months.

I was almost a year without gas.

So that meant no more Airbnb income. No income at all. FOR MONTHS.

I started panicking, and I guess had a little of an epiphany right there, so I decided to learn a new skill, something that would get me a job fast no matter what. So I decided to learn how to code.

Somehow the planets where aligned that day because I found this program trough a friend of mine, that teaches women how to code and programming and help them find jobs in the technology field. 

The course was expensive, but they offered a scholarship program in which you can start paying them after you’ve landed your first job in technology. If you couldn’t land a job in the first 6 months after the course ended, then, you owed them nothing. Sounded really good to me.

So I applied for that program, without any hopes or expectations.

A few days before my ski trip they told me I was pre selected and had to take a test, it was a logic test and it was quite long, again, I went and did the test without ANY hopes because there were like 50 girls there. And I am no genius, so some of the questions in that test I didn’t know how to answer.

Relentless to listen to the Murphy’s law, I went ahead and went on my ski trip like nothing happened.

In the middle of the trip, the people for that program called me and informed that I was selected and that I needed to start right away, I told them I wasn’t even in the city and that I’ll be back in a few days, just one day after the course starts, but I didnt heard back from them so I figured maybe they decided to go with someone else.

We had a really nice time the rest of the trip until on the last day, I fell and broke my wrist.

I had no insurance.

I had to wear a cast for almost 2 months.

When I got back home from the trip I just wanted to sleep for days, I was really depressed and in a lot of pain for my wrist, had a cast on my arm so everything was difficult and uncomfortable, even sleeping.

I was desperate: no income, no savings, piling up debt day by day and now, medical expenses.

I didn’t have a panic attack just because I was too tired and sad to do so.

The next day I opened my email and there it was, the people from the program decided to accept me and I could start right away.

So I got up early and went, not knowing what that really was.

I did the program for 5 months. In the meantime I continued to apply for jobs in my field and I was attending to the classes of this program which was 4 days a week, during the mornings.

In the middle I had my cast taken off, and started to feel not so depressed, cut down on all of my expenses and I was living to the bear minimum. That is when I started listening to Dave Ramsey’s podcast, I was eager to follow his advice but I didn’t even had an income to work with. In that moment I decided I was sick and tired, and that I will never, EVER, be in that position again.

A few weeks before the program ended, I got a job in a big company, a front-end developer job, my first one in the technology field. 

I was so excited. the salary wasn’t much, it isn’t much still, but I can cover my minimum expenses and there is a little spare money to work with. But the most important: stability, being able to save, even a little towards an emergency found.

Just a month after that, the gas service in my building was restored, so , again, I had that extra source of income right back up. Things were finally in motion.

So this is where I am now:

-Already founded my baby emergency fund of a thousand dollars (US dollars that is).

-Already paid my immediate debt which was credit card, city taxes for the apartment, and the scholarship/loan from the program. (I will explain this in another post)

-Started paying the first of the personal debt which is in US dollars, so that will take some time.

-Have my sinking funds set up and growing every month.

Through all 2018 I was trying to get my emergency fund in place, and paying my immediate debt.

The bad news is that in September, the US dollar went up very high so my salary which, at the beginning of the year was equal 800 dollars. Now,was almost 600 dollars. A MONTH.

That’s another  delightful thing about third world countries: salaries are almost nothing, and , in some cases, strongly bound to the US dollar currency, at least in the country that I live in.

So it was a few months until I got my emergency found in place, and I was paying in instalments every month for the program that i mentioned before, which I finished paying in October last year. Also, along with my credit card debt, which I close and destroyed a couple of months ago.

With the  next month’s salary I finished paying a city tax debt that I’ve accumulated for this apartment.

After that. I started attacking my big fat personal debt which is about 18000 dollars total. I know it doesn’t seem that much. But for someone with a monthly salary of 600 dollars, getting to 18000 is A LOT.

So my main goal right now is to get a third source of income and a second job.

It will be hard, and time consuming, but I have an income problem and this is the only way to solve it.

This is my  debt free journey so far and part of opening this blog is to keep me accountable.

So after one year into this journey, my net worth came down from -$18000 to -$16529.29.

Not bad. But I still have a lot to do. I am still looking for a second job that I can do on my weekends and I am planning on offer a sewing service for fixing clothes from people around my building (you know, patch holes, attach zippers, make hems on pants). Also I am working towards building my front-end developer portfolio so I can apply for freelance jobs, but that will take me at least 3 months.

For the moment, this is my status.

I will keep you posted and in a future post I will tell you more in detail about all that was covered in this post.

Thanks for being there, debt free community, I’ve been reading your blogs and watching your youtube videos for more than a year now and let me tell you, I am so glad I discovered you and the Dave Ramsey baby steps. 

Hope this works and I know it does because I’ve follow your stories.

See you in my next post.

Bel.-