Credit card debt

Let me tell you a personal story that is probably happening more often than not.

I thought my girlfriend and I were on the same page with finances. We were splitting the bills and everything 50/50. It turns out she wasn't able to afford our lifestyle and racked up almost 30k in credit card debt, in a year.

Guys, I know that you want to take care of your girl but.... do not be an idiot either. If I could do it all over again, I would ask to see her bank statements and credit card statements. If she won't provide them, leave.

I'll tell you how this happened. I knew she was expensive but she made her own money and paid for her own stuff. Fair enough. What changed is she needed the nicer car, and the nicer house. She was still paying half of everything, in our fun money joint account. Little did I know, that was all of her money, so on paper everything looked good. Behind the scenes almost everything was going on cards, even stupid stuff like StarBucks.

TL;DR Don't assume, and gloss over, what your partner is doing with money. My story is with a GF but it could be your BF too. Ask, look into it. Stop the bad behavior before it becomes 30k and the interest payments are more than the minimum payment.

a reply to: MauiWaui

Good advice. Are you guys working it out or did she dig her own hole?

a reply to: MauiWaui

I met a girl in NYC on a trip 12 years ago. We fell in love and got our own place.

She owned a bar and I thought she was doing ok. She overspent on clothing and racked up a $45,000 credit card bill in a year.

Same thing happen, I thought she could afford out lifestyle. She was making good money with her business but she spent way more than she made.

I really liked her but I had to leave her.

We are still friends. She married a super rich guy and now racks up his credit cards. Sad!

It amazes me how many people get in trouble with credit cards. It's like they just can't help themselves. It's like..."I'll worry about it tomorrow, but today I just gotta' have THIS!"

When I was in college I had some new fangled bank account which gave me what I thought was a credit card (but turned out to be a debit card with an overdraft account). I think I lived in the red for like three years. I never liked the feeling. Then one day I met my ex-wife. She had lots of credit cards, like LOTS! WOO-HOO!! PARTY TIME!!

She had great credit, but lots of debt. It started with a college loan which was six figures. I figured 'what the hell, might as well party now cuz we'll never pay all this off'. That was a bad plan. I wound up getting a spectacular job and paid a lot of it off (but her college debt was on her). Paid off our house, paid off most of the bills, BUT she thought this was all the more reason to just go nuts spending. Party time was over! And so was she!

Met my current wife while still working said spectacular job. She worked for a mortgage company as a loan officer underwriting home loans. Big home loans (like upper six figure, to seven figure, loans). She was also sitting on a pile of cash (like walk in and pay cash for a house, kind of pile). She had one rule; no credit cards.

First thing she did when we got together was set up a system to pay off any remaining credit cards I had (with my money). It wasn't a lot, but there was some. When I got them paid off, I got rid of them. All of them. For many years I never had even a single credit card. I had a company card, and a debit card, and that was it. To this day I still only have one credit card, and I pay that off every month. I only have it for online purchases because I don't want to use a debit card for that; otherwise I wouldn't have it.

It just shocks me how much interest you waste on credit cards. That's what kills people, the compounding interest. I can easily say I've avoided a couple million dollars in interest through the policy of 'No Credit Cards'. Probably one of the greatest things which has ever happened to me financially.